


My Vices

by pensandharmonies



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: (except there very much is strings attached), Casual Sex, Eventual Feelings, F/M, No Strings Attached, families are hard basically, mentioned child abuse, turks being... turks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:54:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 29,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24137701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pensandharmonies/pseuds/pensandharmonies
Summary: Dani never fed into the rumors that Reno was like the Devil. If anything, she welcomed them, for she had the pleasantries of knowing exactly what it was like with him between her legs. Who was she, a bartender working in the Sector Six slums, to condemn him due to public opinion?If she had, she might have avoided the ride through hell that man would take her on.
Relationships: Reno (Compilation of FFVII)/Original Character(s), Reno (Compilation of FFVII)/Original Female Character(s), Reno/Reader
Comments: 23
Kudos: 66





	1. Recklessness

It was a cold night in Wallmarket, the lower plate region of Sector Six. As usual, the sleazy section of the Midgar slums was bursting with life, the patrons of the market ensuring they enjoyed themselves to the maximum. This mindset always resulted in consumers stumbling out of venues - liquor bars, restaurants, the Honeybee Inn - having lost their wits and sense of direction, most ending up asleep in the gutters until the artificial light from the upper plate told them it was morning. A simple chill in the air wouldn't deter anyone from using their regular services. If anything, the misery of the temperature only encouraged more people to seek out heat in the form of alcoholic entertainment.

These factors weren't all disheartening, for it meant that the small bar close to the materia stand found itself hustling with both regulars and new customers, all of which made the night a lot easier in passing for the the young barmaid and bartender who clearly drew the short straw over the evening shift.

Undeterred by her unfortunate shift pattern, the barmaid had a smile plastered across her face, greeting each customer who ordered from her with an equal grin. Light conversation usually endured, more so with the regulars than those who had never been before, but even to those on their first visit, it was obvious the girl was very much liked among locals.

Danica Selma, or _Dani_ as those who knew her called her, was a welcoming young woman, dark ringlets of hair pulled in a loose ponytail that hung down her back. Her skin was a dark tan, telling more of her origin than her current residence, for her shade of skin was certainly not a result of lack of sunlight in the slums. Hazel-grey eyes searched for contact with her customers' own, but it was usually her body that drew their own attention.

She wasn’t model standard thin, but had weight in all the right places - of course, the uniform she wore to serve didn’t help. She wore tight leather covered pants that hugged her hips and tightened at the ankles, making her legs seem longer than they already were, coupled with a pine green blouse that gave quite the suggestion with the top three buttons undone. Even her platformed high heels, the same colour as her work shirt, added to the allusion.

It was no wonder the customers of all ages were drawn to her.

The bartender she worked with, a flamboyant young man named Hanson, had eyes on him too, of both men and women. He was happy to accept the occasional flirtatious comment, going as far to return it to those he found quite fanciable - a stark contrast to his friend, who simply avoided any attempt to woo her with a polite ignorance.

There was a strange haze hanging over the bar tonight, most likely a result of the busy day. From the second the workers before had unlocked the bar, customers had piled in, and the takeover of shifts had been a nightmare, for by the time Dani and Hanson had managed to exchange tills with the two before, a substantial queue had begun to form.

Busy was good, as it meant time flew by, but it also meant the two friends rarely got the chance to take a moment to themselves, and their conversation was limited to whenever they crossed paths making drinks. Whether it be a simple neat whiskey, or a complicated cocktail, they always made sure to drag out the task a little longer than it would take two bartenders like them, just to give them the opportunity to exchange pleasantries and the casual bit of gossip that was bound to follow them.

“The guy to your left seems quite taken with you.” Hanson spoke on one occasion, as he took his time breaking up a selection of ice cubes that had moulded together.

Dani didn’t need to look to know exactly who her coworker was talking about. The blonde had made advances on her during his entire stay so far, however she had rebuffed them as kindly as possible, avoiding suggestive conversation and opting to discuss platonic things such as the weather with him. Despite her attempts to turn his attention away, he hadn’t yet faltered, and she was wondering when she would have to lie to the man that she was interested in women to get him to leave her alone. Or worse yet, discuss politics. That was always a shoo-in that someone would leave you alone around these parts.

No matter how hard she had tried to begin with, as was the same story with every man she spoke to in the evenings, her brain couldn’t conceptualize involving herself with the man. Her mind was clouded with a fog, and at that point, the weather of her thoughts didn’t appear to show signs of changing. One route would be to tell Hanson she wasn’t looking for a relationship, but she knew his answer would be that there were other ways to have fun. If only he knew how satisfied she was in that department, but she didn’t feel like discussing her sex life whilst on the clock.

Perhaps he already knew. A person as perceptive as Hanson was bound to know something, for he usually had a pretty good sense of when his friend was ‘getting laid’, but his persistence in trying to set her up with every man who showed an interest in her told otherwise. She would have been sure it was obvious to him she had been sleeping with someone, maybe she overestimated his powers of observation.

Or, maybe he chose to ignore what she was doing for reasons.

Passing the customer a glance and a friendly smile, she turned her attention back to the brunette by her side. “I’m not interested, H.”

“I’m just saying,” persistence was both his best worst quality “it might do you good to have a little fun.” Besides the open end to his statement, Dani assumed that was it for his nightly lecture, although more followed when he lowered his voice and answered the question her subconscious had asked just moments ago. “With someone that isn’t you-know-who.”

Hanson returned to his customer at that, leaving Dani pouring the pint she had started on, a sigh slipping through her lips.

Reno wasn’t _that bad_.

His mouth did make him insufferable at the best of times, even to her, but he wasn’t a completely horrendous person. He just sometimes had to do bad things. Still, those both above and below the plate would never accept that, for in their eyes the Turks were the Turks. They were, as far as anyone in Wallmarket was concerned, assassins, and association with them was kept to as much of a minimum as possible.

Dani never cared much for social status, or what others thought of people. She rarely engaged in discussion of the hierarchy in Shinra’s social structure, the gossip she preferred to receive being more local based. In fact, when she had first met Reno, she didn’t even know he was a Turk.

She had met the red haired man below the plate, one evening during a quiet shift in which she was the only worker there. When you meet someone in the slums, you more than likely assume they are from the area, for it is rare to find anyone from the upper class hanging around there (she may not have engaged in conversation about class, but she knew that as a simple fact). Therefore, she had never considered that the man she spoke to - and later became entangled with in a more intimate position atop the bar - would have been involved with Shinra.

Reno was charming in a please-shut-up sort of way. It was evident why he had a reputation in his line of work even from the beginning, before she knew exactly what that line of work was. He was quick witted and absolutely incapable of staying silent for more than ten seconds; something that she found strangely endearing.

Strangely endearing. That was probably the best way to describe him.

 _Except for crazily attractive_ , she thought to herself.

When she discovered his line of work, she had actually been with a friend of hers from Sector Seven, Tifa Lockhart. Dani didn’t contact Tifa much, but it was nice to have friends in other Sectors, and so she and the girl had made a habit of meeting for a cheap meal and a catch up. Their relationship was helped by the trading of produce between Seventh Heaven and Diablos, the pub at which she worked.

That particular occasion, Tifa had politely asked the girl to cover for her on the bar, just for a few minutes, whilst she went below to speak to some of her fellow AVALANCHE members. It was no secret at this point Tifa was a member of the group, along with the larger than life Barret Wallace, who Dani had only had the pleasure of meeting three times. Dani hadn’t ever been enthralled to join the group, but she observed from a distance, being a known ally who Tifa knew she could call on if any of their missions needed someone to support the bar - or even care for Barret's young daughter Marlene. Although she barely knew the man, she always agreed on the grounds that he was from Corel, the same place that had once been her home, and she felt inclined to help him on that factor alone.

When Reno waltzed into the bar, suited up and accompanied by both a stun rod, and a rather stoic looking partner by his side, he had looked just as surprised to see her as she had him. One glance at the suit he wore, white shirt hung wide open to display the outline of his defined pec muscles, and she knew exactly what his job was. Not everyone dressed like that, walked like that, and held on to that expressive of a weapon.

Reno was grateful that the girl didn’t say anything at the time, treating him the same as any other customer, but even he had worried that the girl was perhaps a part of the terrorist group they had been tracking down. He had made a mental note to discuss it with her next time he inevitably visited her own place of work. And he had. Although their conversation had been broken up between kisses and moans. It wasn’t the most arousing topic to discuss as they tore each other’s clothes off, but as he had put off seeing her for an entire fortnight, both parties had realised just how sexually frustrated they had been.

All things considered, Reno wasn’t _that bad_. To her at least.

Realisation dawned that she had been trapped in the thoughts of the past when the cool liquid of the beer she was pouring began to spill over the rim of the glass and trickle onto her fingers. Blinking quickly, she wiped up the mess and exchanged the glass of alcohol for money from her customer, now having to force herself to make interaction for parts of her mind were still deep in memory.

It was that point in the evening which the bar did begin to settle, whilst still giving the two bartenders enough work to keep them going. When they weren’t serving drinks, they were cleaning the surfaces and trying to prepare for closing, which still seemed worlds away at this point.

When the clock struck into the final two hours (for nights in Wallmarket felt more like years), Hanson let out a huff and leant against the frame of the doorway that would take them into the backroom. He lit up a cigarette with ease, not having to worry about being indoors, or smoking on the job, for this sort of thing was awfully common in the area of which they resided. Dani took this as a sign he was having a break, and moved to serve a man on what was Hanson’s side of the bar.

Now the rush had calmed down, the friends were able to slip into a light conversation whilst the girl moved around doing tasks. Unfortunately, Hanson seemed hellbent on questioning her tonight, for he had yet to drop the topic of earlier.

“You sure you don’t want me to sort you out a date with the hot blonde?” He smirked to himself as he took a drag of the cigarette.

“I’m fine.” Dani answered with an all too casual grin “If you fancy him that much, you could ask him yourself.”

Hanson huffed, which Dani only hoped was a sign of defeat. “Tell me then. Is Reno’s dick really that big that you’re insisting on still sleeping with him?”

Now, it was Dani’s turn to smirk, and after she didn’t answer verbally, Hanson glanced over at his friend to see the look settling on her lips, almost choking in response. He spluttered for a moment, taking a nearby dishrag and tossing it in his friend's direction. “Oh my God, Danica, don’t answer that!” He panicked, Dani only responding with a smile and a playful chuckle which they both shared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well hello there!i hope you enjoyed this brief introduction to my oc! i'm incredibly excited to write this fic, as i was thrust back into my love of ffvii by the remake, but i never forgot just how much i loved our cheeky turk.
> 
> it may seem all roses and daisies for a while, but trust me, i have some ideas for the future;)
> 
> please feel free to comment with feedback or thoughts - i'm welcome to anything (i also just like talking to people), and i'll see you in the next chapter, where we'll properly get to meet the man of the hour.


	2. Lust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just when you think you know someone, they always seem to surprise you. But even the best possible surprises may have self-indulgent undertones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a note to say that this story obviously takes place before the events of final fantasy vii (although there may be elements of the game referenced, and developed in later chapters). however because of this, there will be new characters and threats of my own creation mentioned:)

Closing the bar had been a surprisingly easy task that night. Dani had half expected to have to drag the remaining patrons and throw them back onto the street herself, but they all seemed fairly happy to oblige with leaving the minute she called for closing. A few of them gave her polite goodbyes, others unable to slur any more words out, but she was grateful for their cooperation nonetheless.

Hanson had gone home the half an hour before, meaning that she was alone in locking up. She didn’t mind, for she had worked here since she had hit the age to get her license, and the method of securing the bar for the rest of the night had been ingrained in her memory. 

A grumble left her lips as she stretched to secure the final bolt on the door, wiping her hands together in achievement once it was all done.  _ Time for home. _

They had been lucky tonight for they hadn’t received any troublesome guests at Diablos; only the occasional drunkard, who were easy enough to suffice with one last drink and a sober companion to take them home. However it appeared from the minute she turned onto the road, that couldn’t be said for the rest of Wallmarket.

In the distance there were shouts from the direction of the Honeybee Inn, as though a fight had broken out in front of the venue - Dani could only imagine the look on the faces of any of the Honeybee girls who had to bear witness to whatever catastrophe occurred. 

The town was still in full swing, even at three in the morning, and it showed no sign of dying down just yet. Pounding music from nearby events halls mimicked earthquakes on the unsteady ground, and Dani was sure that would have been where most of the customers she had kicked out had travelled to next. She would never understand how a place could be so full of life and drained of it all at once.

Now there was just the walk home to endure. A miserable route at anything, for she lived on the outskirts of the Sector Seven slums. It wasn’t too long of a journey, but it was dangerous all the same; hedgehog pies being her main concern, for not only were the things surprisingly quick on their feet, they had a tendency to steal whatever you were carrying. 

She frequently counted on the hope that there would still be people milling around the same area, making the same journey as her, but kept her own armoury (an extendable dagger) tucked away safely in her bag, just in case. 

Dani wasn’t a fighter by any means, but she wasn’t completely inept at protecting herself. Her time working at the bar had meant she had to learn a few things for the sake of basic survival. Still, she was mediocre at best. Her talents came more in the form of making cocktails that would make even Bahamut order another.

Beginning the first journey of exiting Wallmarket, Dani recognised a few of the faces who were slumped against the walls and stumbling out of shops, for she had served most of them at some time in the past. None of them were sober enough to form proper conversation, so she allowed them to shout incoherent nonsense in her direction, giving a shy wave back. Her encounters with the drunk only made it sweeter when she passed the Chocobo Ranch, finding Sam’s features easily amongst the stables.

The man was tending to a chocobo in the farthest stable, his face twisted in his signature scowl as he assessed the situation. 

“Hey, Sam!” She called, possibly all too cheery for three in the morning. 

He looked up, finding her face in the darkness and giving a curt nod. “Dani.” He was a man of few words, but brief conversation with him had become a part of her routine. “You alright gettin’ home by yourself?”

That was one of the things she liked most about him. Sam was a fairly cold man, never one to engage with people in the town for the sake of keeping his own sanity, but he was always concerned with her wellbeing. Even after seeing her walk home most nights, and having her decline any offers of transportation or company, he still asked that same question.

“I’ll be fine,” she had continued walking past the ranch, moving backwards blindly so that she could still see the man she was speaking to “you have a good night!”

With that, a brief, yet habitual conversation, she turned around and continued on, hearing a distant call for her to stay safe.

Reaching the park just before her journey into the slums, she was glad to see it was unattended, all the children that usually lined it on her journey to work being home safe. There had been one or two occasions in passing where she had found some of the young inhabitants of Sector Seven still playing, and had needed to escort them home, to which their parents had scalded them.  _ Technically, it’s your fault  _ Dani had always thought when the parents blamed it on the children staying out, thinking they needed better control, but she never got involved and simply bypassed them home. 

There wasn’t much longer in her travels, and she was thankful that a small number of people milling around had meant that the hedgehog pies hadn’t chosen to venture much further out of their boundary, and she could head home with ease. 

━

By the time Dani reached her small apartment home in the Sector Seven slums, she was grateful to see it. A night shift always meant that she was tired by the time she returned home - not always necessarily to sleep, but physically, for her feet and arms ached from the long, busy hours. 

In her head, she would enter her home, take a quick shower and make herself a nice warm drink to take to bed. She had even begun to picture the routine in her mind, the very imagery of being able to lie down making her fingers tingle with a domestic sort of excitement. 

But, maybe, that would have to wait, for she was sure the figure sitting on her doorstep would delay her relaxation.

Reno was easy to see, even from a mile off, his bright red hair illuminated even further by the single street lamp above them. At the distance she was lingering, she couldn’t quite make out his features, but knew he had recognised her when he pulled himself to his feet as she came into view. He was still in his suit - something he was less wary of now she knew who he was - and Dani could only wonder how many hesitant glances he would have gotten from fellow slum-dwellers when he walked through.

It was as though he had heard he was the topic of the evening, for when she came closer, she could see the smug grin plastered across his face. Her attention also drew to the cut on his lip, one that had appeared since the last time she saw him, but that was something she knew was a downside of his job - one of the many downsides.

The bubble she felt in her stomach was one of a girl seeing an old friend, for she never felt any immediate affection towards the man, other than enjoying his company as she did when she’d hang out with Tifa or Hanson. The difference with this was she was almost certain that would be replaced shortly when he was inevitably between her legs. 

“I didn’t think I’d see you today.” She spoke first now that she was in earshot. There was no greeting other than that between the two, Dani walking past him up the stairs to her door, and that was how they liked it. 

Reno chuckled to himself, and even without looking, the curly haired girl could tell he was smirking. “Didn’t want to deprive you of my company for any longer,” Dani opened the door, holding it open for him, to which he gladly accepted and wandered into the familiar apartment “I know three days must have been really hard for you. In Fact, I’m surprised you haven’t jumped me straight away.”

Dani fought the urge to roll her eyes as she hung her jacket and bag up behind the door, but still her companion’s teasing made a smile creep up on the edge of her lips.

“You’re doing all the work.” She commented light-heartedly, shifting around him to sit on the bed. He was familiar with her room, but always respected that it was hers, strangely enough, and allowed her to lead the ‘getting comfortable’. “I’m exhausted.”

“Oh yeah, yeah, making drinks all evening is so tiring.” He drawled in response. “Hey, if you want, we can swap careers?”

Again, his chatter caused Dani to smile. She enjoyed his company as both a friend, and someone she was sleeping with.It was a nice change to be able to look at someone and not be met with hazy thoughts, like she was too often with the men Hanson tried to set her up with. With Reno, everything was simple. He’d show up if, and when he wanted, they’d have sex, and then they’d move on with their weeks. There was no fuzziness over boundaries, or titles of a relationship, or promises owed to one enough. It was just sex, and she liked it that way.

“I stand by what I said, you’re doing all the work.”

With that, Reno raised his eyebrows and finally ventured towards her. She hadn’t necessarily been in the mood for sex tonight, but something as simple as the sight of him in front of her was enough to completely change her opinion. 

When he leant over, connecting their lips together, she was surprised to find his kiss was soft and light, a stark contrast to the usual powerful contact she was used to. He had, twice before, broken something in her room through the sheer force of his endeavours. This was a sensation she wasn’t used to, and it showed when her head jerked back in response to his touch.

Reno looked at her, a sense of bewilderment in his eyes, but she was sure the same one reflected in her own grey irises.

“You’re being gentle?” She asked, an air of confusion in her tone.

“You said you were tired.” He responded with ease, and Dani was hit with a new revelation about the man in front of her. That was the last reason she would have expected, that he had listened and taken her energy levels into consideration.

She had half expected him to shrug when she had told him she was tired, going about it the same way they always did, but this was new. This opened up a whole new side to Reno she had never seen before. Cocky and, at times, unbearable were probably two of the words you could use to describe the red haired Turk, but as he stared down at Dani with piercing turquoise eyes, she began to think of a thousand other ones. 

Had she been oblivious to the man’s life, she would have concluded from this that people judged him too quickly, pinned him as a monster for no reason, but she wasn’t gullible. This was just another part of his personality, it didn’t replace the other things. 

When she discovered exactly who Reno was, in the fortnight between seeing him at Seventh Heaven, and him arriving to speak to her, she had done some research of her own - most of which involved her asking around. Tifa and Barret were happy to indulge their opinions of the Turks, their stories alone should have been enough to divert her from keeping his company, and yet she was drawn back. No matter how many horror stories she heard about the work that the Shinra Turks did, something drew her back to Reno, a feeling that she had. Call it lust, for that was the most likely, but she believed a part of it was her hope that he was more than they made him out to be.

Just maybe, she was right.

Drawn back to reality by his hand sliding along her hip, fingers expertedly finding the exposed skin just under her blouse, her own eyes flickered to his lips with a newfound feeling of desire. He noticed where he attention was centered, a sly grin curving into his features, all whilst he kept his eyes on her own.

Dani lifted her own hands behind his neck, tracing circles on the skin next to where his long ponytail hung. She was always tempted to take it out and let his hair flow loose, having to focus her energy on the movement of her fingers to stop her subconscious from doing so. The hairs on the back of his neck stood to attention under her touch.

“Tired doesn’t mean you have to take it easy, as long as you put the effort in.”

That statement was enough for Reno. Infact, the sentence had barely left Dani’s mouth when his lips crashed onto hers, body pushing them backwards until he was on top of her on the bed, holding his frame up by the elbows as they kissed with a desperate sort of haste.

Reno was correct, three days without seeing him had been really hard. He knew how to touch her, how to make her feel a certain way, something no other guy she had been with knew of. Even from the minute her body collided with his, his left, more dominant hand was flying over her body, finding the buttons on her blouse with robotic ease, the method so normal to him by now. It took mere seconds for the feeling of electricity to boil in the pit of her stomach, butterflies crashing into the surface every moment his hands grazed her skin.

He deepened the kiss skillfully, waiting until she let out a soft gasp in reaction to his hand finding the curve of her breast, using the opportunity to slip his tongue along her bottom lip and into her mouth. Her own tongue grazed over the cut on his bottom lip, the iron flavoured taste of blood still lingering - it was fresh. She wondered if it hurt, but Reno showed no reaction to her touch.

The feeling of him against her overpowered all of Dani’s senses, until it was just the two of them circulating around her mind, a tingling sensation building in every part of her body. She was engulfed in every part of him, his scent being musky, with a lingering sensation of smoke and nicotine on his clothing, but she didn’t care for that. An easy solution would be to remove the clothes he was wearing, and the smell of smoke would disappear quickly.

Responding to the train of thought in her mind, Dani’s hands found the clasp that held his suit together, letting it fly open and give her more access to his body. 

When they first started fooling around, she would run her hands along every part of his body, dipping inside the white shirt he left so open, feeling every muscle on his body until the recollection of the feeling was deep-rooted in her mind. She had learnt about every crease, every scar, every imperfection on his skin, her hands usually finding them within seconds so that she covered all of his frame. Now those touches were long in the past.

Sure, Reno enjoyed teasing her with feathered contact between his fingers and her skin, until he had her writhing beneath him, but that was just his ego talking. If on an occasion, they didn’t want to prolong the process, they were happy without the additional contact, being comfortable enough with each other’s body. 

A soft moan from Dani’s lips when Reno caught a particularly sensitive area of her body told him he was doing something right, the sound encouraging him to go on with his motions. Those sounds were the only encouragement he ever needed, they had become his favourite thing to hear, something he wanted on a never ending playlist. 

Admittedly, since she had begun this endeavour with the red haired man, Dani had been unable to picture the person above her as anyone but Reno. The way he made her feel was otherworldly, even when he was driving her up the walls; most of the time metaphorically will his self-admiration, but occasionally quite literally, when he had her hoisted against a wall. 

It was beginning to come to her attention that she rather liked his company.

She  _ really  _ liked it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know it's strange to have a pre-established relationship, i promise it's for a reason. in my head, it would take time to form the 'relationship' they have, and i wanted it to be pre-determined so that events can move on quicker. 
> 
> again, very domestic right now, but i'm excited to start developing the story:) 
> 
> i also apologise reno isn't as 'quick-witted' as some would prefer him to be, it's only because of the type of relationship they have right now - for the time being at least ;)


	3. Untrustworthy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Reno is keeping secrets, and Dani is beginning to wonder if she can trust him.

The morning started out in an unusual way, for it was a rare occasion that Dani and Reno were able to wake up together. Usually their work coincided, and they had to disappear immediately after Reno’s stay in the evening, but today they found themselves both off from their jobs.

Reno was sure, knowing his lifestyle, that Tseng would still find a way to call him in later, especially regarding the conversation they had undertaken yesterday.

It had been on Reno’s mind all night. Dani knew he wasn’t himself, but he was thankful the girl chose not to question it whilst he tried his hardest to make their arrangement seem normal, but even as he had been indulged in pleasure, all he could think about was the talk he had with his boss a mere few hours before.

_ “Reno,” Tseng spoke as the Turks under his control began to leave the room. Rude gave a passing glance to his partner, but the redhead simply nodded for his acquaintance to continue, and turned back to face his superior “stay behind. We need to have a chat.” _

_ Tseng’s voice was as monotone as ever, facial features giving away no suggestion of what he may want to talk about. Reno began to run through in his mind everything he could have possibly done wrong; a list longer than most employees would have. Nothing stood out, everything being something his boss expected of the unruly Turk at this point, and he couldn’t pinpoint anything out of the ordinary. _

_ Of course, Reno wasn’t intimidated by Tseng. What did intimidate him was the prospect of losing his job, for Turks never really left the company. They knew too much private information to just be let go, so there was only one other option… _

_ “The girl you’re seeing in the slums-” That had not been what Reno was expecting.”Danica, is it?” _

_ “Dani, boss.” Reno recalled quickly, remembering how the girl had expressed hatred for people using her full name.  _

_ He should have maybe been more surprised at Tseng’s understanding of his personal life, but after working with the man for such a long time, he knew Tseng had eyes everywhere. There were reasons he was head of the Turks, and being good at his job was the main one. _

_ “Dani, then.” Tseng continued, still not showing any sign of emotion. _

_ Reno interrupted, trying to save face incase he would be reprimanded “It was only gonna be one time, there’s nothing in it, I’m just too irresistible to her, I guess you could say-” _

_ “She’s in danger.”  _

_ The redheaded Turk’s mouth clamped close, his attempt at passing it off as a joke failing miserably when Tseng uttered those three words. As much as he hated to admit it, Reno was strangely fond of the girl from the slums. Not in a romantic way - God, no. Romance wasn’t Reno’s thing, he was more of a sex, wine, and a good time type of guy (if the wine could be substituted for something a little more hardcore). Nevertheless, he still liked Dani. He often found himself with a strange sense of concern whenever she walked herself home in the dark, which was the real reason he always made it to her apartment, even after long days, whenever she worked a night shift. He knew that if she didn’t show up, he could track her route and help out if she found herself in any danger. Although he would never admit this to her. The very idea of her being in trouble, frankly enough, scared him.  _

_ “What do you mean?” He asked, wanting to know more. _

_ A silent response from Tseng was enough to tell him more than he needed, and when his superior motioned for him to take a seat, Reno did so with only slight hesitancy. _

That conversation, the contents of it, had been on his mind ever since. He hadn’t intended to see Dani the night before, but as he wandered the streets of Midgar aimlessly, he felt a surge of want to be with the girl. Naturally, he couldn’t tell her why he had wanted so desperately to be with her, to the point he was willing to abstain from their usual form of entertainment (although he was grateful they still engaged in regular practice).

Dani had noticed his mind was in another world the night before. The first sign was that he had been unable to meet her eye, a large telling sign that he wasn’t all there. Reno was naturally arrogant, his entire persona involved exuding confidence, and eye contact was one of the major parts of this. His line of work required him to have the upper hand on those he came into conflict with, and he was trained to keep this show of superiority even in the most pressuring of situations. Dani, however, wasn’t that intimidating.

The second tell tale sign was that he had stayed over. Although they had discussed their corresponding days of rest, the last thing she would have expected was for him to jump at the chance to stay over. Her apartment wasn’t the most pleasant of places, small and stuff, with the bed only just larger than a single. She had no form of entertainment, and a less than mediocre cooking space - her little slum lifestyle was nothing like what he was used to on the upper plate. 

It worried her slightly, but no matter how she felt, she didn’t trouble him over it, for if it was a work thing (which she assumed it was), she didn’t want to pry.

Reno would admit, that despite all the chaos washing through his thoughts at that moment, waking up next to Dani was nice.

Her bed wasn’t the most comfortable, but she had tried to ease the situation for herself with blankets layered over the mattress to create a cushion like feel. It was surprisingly pleasant, allowing his tired body to sink down a few inches, soft cotton engulfing his aching limbs.

It was pretty evident to Reno that the blankets weren’t the only part of the sleeping arrangements he enjoyed. The sleeping girl by his side certainly helped.

In such a small space, they had very little choice than to be pressed against one another - not that this was something either of them were opposed to, considering their connection in the first place. What had started as both on their sides, backs pressed together, had somehow ended in Reno lying flat, Dani’s arm wrapped around his waist with her head rested on his chest. He gave a glance down towards her, hazel-grey eyes hidden by her state of sleep. Her curly hair was strewn messily around, a sign of their activities the night before, and he couldn’t help but think she looked much better with her hair down, when it was unruly and unkempt, as opposed to when she pulled it back for work.

When Dani began to stir, eyes flicking open, he froze under her touch. What did  _ normal  _ people do when they woke up in bed with someone? He hadn’t really experienced this. Most girls he slept with, he left almost immediately after the deed was done - Dani included. This was only a result of his new found intelligence of the situation the girl had become caught up in. 

“Morning.” She mumbled, voice hoarse with the remnants of sleep. There was no embarrassment in her tone about the position she had wrangled herself in during the night, in fact her instinct as she awoke was to curl further into the man’s side.

He greeted her shifting with an arm moving around her, resting on her shoulder blade with a small squeeze. “Uh, hello.”

His response, or what little of it he gave, drew a snicker from the girl, who stretched out a finally rolled away, clearly amused by his lack of normality in his life. 

Sitting up, she teased. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t laugh. I guess you Turks don’t really get to do normal relationship stuff, huh?”

Reno raised his eyebrows at her, propping himself up on his elbows with a smirk. “So this is a relationship now?” He asked.

“You know what I mean.” Dani rolled her eyes, making a move to clamber over him and off the bed, but as she placed her hand on his body to support her weight, she slipped and caused more of an issue for the both of them.

The man grunted in response, she didn’t weigh much to him, especially considering his own strength, but the shock of the quick jab was still enough to create an air of uncomfortableness. When she went to move again, he wrapped his arms around her curved frame and pulled her flush against his own body, receiving a soft huff from Dani as she was rendered stuck on top of him.

From their position, she was just able to look up to be met with his turquoise eyes, shining so brightly in the glow of the morning. In return, he got a good view of her own, studying the way the grey snuck up on the hazel from the outside, creating what mimicked lightning bolts in her eyes. It was a thing you would never notice if you hadn’t gotten close to her - hell, even he hadn’t noticed before - and it only further emphasised her beauty.

“So this is a relationship now?” She mimicked, poking fun at the position he had pulled her into. 

“Please,” In response, Reno rolled his eyes, letting go of her waist and holding his arms out in an exasperated sort of way. “You couldn’t handle all this.”

Dani looked like she wanted to hit him right then and there, giving a glare that anyone who didn’t know her would be terrified by, but he saw the playful curve threatening at the corner of her mouth, and he took that as his opportunity.

In one quick and easy move, as if lifting a feather, he flipped them over until Dani was trapped beneath his body. He hovered above her, keeping their skin pressed together, but still supporting his own weight by her side. A quick wink in her direction told her exactly what he was thinking, and she allowed him to connect their lips quite happily, making the most of the strange situation.

Reno kissed her lustfully, allowing his hands to rake through the ringlets of her hair, massaging it between his fingers whilst he explored her mouth. For a moment, he was engaged with her, and only her, his mind only picturing the moment they were in. It was as though there was a barrier of energy trapping them together in that moment, keeping them there pressed against each other, submerged in their connection.

Then it all came flooding back.

As though someone opened a dam of anxiety, Reno’s conversation with Tseng the day before pushed itself to the forefront of his mind and asserted it’s dominance. It replaced any sensation before it with that of worry, and his motions faltered instinctively. The connection between his lips and the girl beneath him only reminded him of what had been said, told him that this wasn’t good for anything. 

He wasn’t meant to say anything, he was told to stay quiet. Every millimetre of his brain was screaming at him to stay silent, but the water was threatening to flow over the edge, and he didn’t know if the rest of his body could follow its lead. He wanted to say something so badly, just  _ something,  _ whether it was small, or the whole truth, he just needed to say  _ something.  _

“My boss asked about you yesterday.” It just slipped out, and the second it did, Reno regretted it.

He tried to keep the kiss going, pass it off as a general comment, but Dani had heard and assessed exactly what that meant. She stopped her motions at once to look at him, but Reno couldn’t meet her eye, all he could do was open and close his mouth like a Blugu.

“He what?” She asked, tone surprisingly calm, but he could tell her mind was running on overload. If only she could see inside his.

Reno should have stopped talking there, or he should have told her everything, but he wasn’t very good at knowing when to stop.

“Uh, he just asked about you. You know, asked about us.” 

A tilt of her head to the left confirmed that he should have, indeed, stopped talking. 

“What do we have to do with him?” Dani was more concerned than angry, which in a way he was grateful for. Angry was an emotion he hadn’t yet seen on her, and he didn’t particularly want to.

“Maybe he wants to join in?” 

There he goes again. Foot in mouth, always putting his foot in his mouth. God, Reno wished so deeply he could just turn off his brain, stop it from connecting with his mouth and getting himself into more trouble than it was worth. He should have never mentioned anything in the first place, it would be much more peaceful if they could just go through with what was clearly going to happen, and he could ignore what Tseng had said. 

The point was that he  _ couldn’t,  _ and he hated that he couldn’t. If this had been anyone other than her, he could have focused on her body, and the way she touched him, instead of feeling guilty every time her breath grazed his skin.

His comment wasn’t appreciated - far from it, for Dani pressed her palm to his shoulder and moved him off her, Reno complying rather simply as it was clear he was in enough trouble as it was. He used the opportunity to get dressed, pulling on the suit the girl had torn off of him last night, for now he sensed nothing else would be happening.

“And you didn’t tell me this, because?”

“Well I didn’t think it was important, babe. You know, we had  _ more  _ important business to attend to last night.” He teased again, motioning towards the bed where the two of them had certainly enjoyed themselves.

_ Stop talking, you idiot _ his brain urged him, a worry aching at the back of his brain that he may take it too far, but this was Reno’s issue. This was his biggest problem, what got him into trouble more often than out of it, his inability to shut up. It was his biggest vice, and the reason he assumed he was so difficult to be around. Even Rude, who he had worked with for some time now, struggled at times when his younger counterpart went on one of his tangents. 

He was truly a fuck up.

“No offence  _ babe, _ ” her tone was different as she mimicked him, not necessarily one of anger, but there was a subtle venom within it that stung more than he would have expected “I don’t exactly want to be the topic of the Turks’ official business.”

“Should have probably thought about that before you kept sleeping with me.”

He was pushing too far yet again, and this time he knew he had truly crossed a line. The look on Dani’s face told him that. He couldn’t apologise, something in him wouldn’t let him apologise, the part of his nature that had been trained so well by those at Shinra.

Even if he had wanted to, even if he was prepared to drop to his knees and grovel to his heart’s content, he wouldn’t have time, for Dani was already moving towards the door. 

His feet were moving before his brain, and as he caught up with her before the door, his hands grabbed onto her own, turning her attention back to him. Dani half expected him to say something, but all he managed was a pathetic drawl of her name. It was that, when that was all he could say, that made her realise she wouldn’t get anywhere with him, and without breaking eye contact for even a moment, she opened the door to her small apartment.

Reno took the signal, realising the hole he had already dug himself, and for once not wanting to make it any deeper for the fear that he would soon fall in it. He stepped over the threshold as she was asking, only turning to face her once he was fully out of her property. 

The scowl she wore spoke a thousand words, and a pang of guilt erupted in his chest knowing that he was the cause of that. She wasn’t entirely unforgiving, for she still allowed the red headed man to lean forward and press a passing kiss to her lips, which he intended as a sign of apology, but Reno thought it best not to push his luck anymore, and took off. 

As he turned his back on the girl, hearing the door shut firmly behind him, the extent of everything flushed him away. Why was he like this? Why could he not turn off that goddamn train of thought? It got him into more trouble than it was worth. 

Worse yet, he didn’t know quite how much hurting his friend would, in turn, hurt him. It was a dull pain he rarely knew, for ignoring his emotions was something he had become quite experienced at in his line of work. He never succumbed to those feelings of regret, or anguish, he just ignored them. It was as though there was a switch inside of him that he could just turn off whenever he quite wanted. 

He cleared the three small steps that took him to flat ground in one, wanting to get gone as soon as possible. Even without looking, he could feel the eyes on him. He had to wear the same suit he usually wore to work, and people around Sector Seven knew exactly what that meant. It was obvious to anyone that didn’t know him personally that the man was a Turk, and those who had the pleasure of knowing him certainly wouldn’t appreciate his presence. On top of all that, his bright red lock of hair made him pretty noticeable, stealth never really a successful trait when you are a walking alarm.

The stares he received didn’t matter. Usually he would make some snide comment, or tease those that couldn’t keep their eye off of him, but his mind was too busy to even consider that right now. 

A scary thought began to acclimate in his brain, the one in which he realised that perhaps it would be best if both parties were no longer involved with each other. That would certainly be the best for her. It would take her out of danger and let her avoid having to settle for his company any longer. She could find a nice man who could take care of her and give her everything she surely wanted; a family, security. She could forget about him and stop wasting her time with a mindless hookup.

Yet that ignited a further want to be near her within him. He didn’t want to be apart from her.He liked what they had. No questions,no promises of futures, just sex. Maybe it meant something to the both of them, maybe it didn’t, but he liked it, and he didn’t want to stop now.

He was paranoid, so insanely paranoid. 

He just hoped she wouldn’t find the device he had planted on her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and i'm finally starting to get on track with my actual story! again, i know the pre-established relationship isn't for everyone, but you'll hopefully see why i needed them to already be close soon:)
> 
> i hope you're all okay and staying safe with the current world issues and all <3


	4. Doubt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One simple discovery can lead to all sorts of questions of doubt.

“What can I get you, Frank?” Dani asked politely just after she finished handing the previous customer their change. Her attention shifted over to where the older man sat in the centre of the bar, a soft smile appearing on his features.

The man was one of her regulars, a kind soul she had gotten to know quite well by this point. He was always welcoming to conversation, and often joked about how he came to Diablos so often because it was the furthest place his aging legs could take him. Occasionally, he’d bring his grandchildren with him - although only one of them was old enough to drink - and even they loved joining in the conversation to share tales of their grandfather’s adventures. 

For now, he was alone, but that didn’t mean he was lonely. He had made polite conversation with the other regulars around him (all of whom he was fairly acquainted with after such a time), and the barmaid, too, was happy to indulge in passing chat. 

“Brandy on the rocks, sweetheart,” he smiled politely “nothing special.”

Dani nodded, getting to work on the drink whilst continuing the engagement. She found conversing with those she served was a good way of passing time on the longer shifts.

“How’s Ellis?” She acquired, asking about his granddaughter - the younger of the two - who had recently started at college. Dani remembered how excited the teenager had been the time before she had come in, talking her grandfather’s ear off about all of her new friends. 

Frank grinned, a fond expression as he thought about his kin “She’s doing just fine. At least I gather in between her rambling.”

Sliding his drink across the table, exchanging the money as though the routine were etched into their nerves, Dani gave him a knowing nod. “She’s a very excitable young girl to say the least.”

As the girl moved to the cash register, quickly working out the change the man needed in her head, Frank let out a low hum. “Were you like that, as a teen?”

Dani thought over her answer whilst she handed the patron back his change. To any other person, it would have probably been a straightforward answer, but Dani struggled to form that memory immediately. 

“Not really.” She answered after a long delay, still in her mind considering the question. “I like to think I was, but I had to do a lot of growing up when I was that age.” 

Frank knew what the girl was hinting at, she had brushed over the topic of her family a few times before, so he didn’t push her to talk, but left the space open in case she wanted to. Dani was hesitant, grateful he hadn’t forced her into a corner, but she thought it on-topic to mention some of it.

“I guess I’ve always been jealous of Ellis, in a way. That she gets to have that.” The bar was quiet, minus a few small clusters of customers, and she took the opportunity to wipe down the countertop with a damp cloth whilst she spoke. “I was ten when my father left, so even then I had to step up and help my mother out with my siblings. Then when she…” she trailed off “You know… I had to look after them myself. I didn’t really get that time to be a teenager.”

Frank nodded, and Dani knew it was an empathetic one, rather than that of a person looking down on her family life. She knew, from scattered conversation, that he knew exactly what it was like to have to step up during your childhood, even if his was a much longer time ago.

Truthfully, the way things turned out with members of her family was something she regretted deeply. She was fifteen when her mother passed away, her and her two younger siblings being forced to move in with an uncle they didn’t particularly like, and she had to take on the role of mother, even as a child herself. Sympathy wasn’t what she wanted, for she knew there were people in much worse situations than her, but it was nice to have someone like Frank to talk to. Guilt had eaten her up inside ever since she had left.

Luckily, her family had moved away from Corel before it’s destruction, leaving their home behind and moving back to her mother’s hometown on the outskirts of Costa del Sol. They were only there a month before her mother returned to the planet. Dani blamed the isolation they felt after she died on the unfamiliarity of the setting they now had to live in.

Sometimes, she wished she was braver than she had been. In her mind, she should have stayed, watched her siblings grow and kept them away from as much horror as she could. And yet she ran. She ran because she was scared. It had only been three years of caring for her siblings when she upped and left, running until her feet couldn’t carry her anymore, and she found herself in Midgar. 

She often wondered how her family were. Every day, she thought about reaching out to them, wanting to ask her brother about school, catch up with her sister, maybe even say hello to her uncle, if he was still around. They wouldn’t want anything to do with her now, that much she was sure of. She had left them, after all, abandoned them because she was terrified.

Realisation of how lost in her memories she had been only dawned on her when the man she had been serving took a hold of her hand, his touch gentle and grounding. All she could muster up was a faint smile, feeling as though the energy had been sucked out of her. Frank noticed, dropping the topic almost immediately.

Once she was back to reality, he retracted his hand to his glass. “Is that young man working today?” 

Dani looked at the clock, noting that it was ten past three, meaning that Hanson was, indeed, late. They weren’t lucky enough to get the same shift that night, but their paths were going to cross, Dani being on the early shift until eight, and Hanson doing the evening shift. 

“He should be.” Shaking her head she returned to cleaning the side. “He’s late, as always.”

Frank chuckled “I’m surprised he hasn’t been let go yet.”

“That’s just because I haven’t told our boss, yet. I have the kid on strings.” She gave a passing wink, moving to serve a customer who had gathered at the bar.

Twenty three more minutes - and twelve seconds - passed before Hanson finally arrived. When he ran into the bar, he was looking more dishevelled than anything.

“I’m so sorry,” he shouted, barely over the threshold. He had already started pulling his jacket off “Meeting ran late.”

“Meeting?” Dani questioned, taking an apron off the coat hook and exchanging it for his leather jacket.

The man ducked behind the bar,tying the apron round him in one simple movement. “Just stuff outside of work.”

Dani was wary of this, for she knew the dangers that often followed business below the plate in Midgar. The last thing she wanted was Hanson involved in something he couldn’t back out of. Although, considering her own escapades, she wasn’t really in a position to judge whatever it was her friend involved himself in.

“Has it been busy?” Hanson asked politely, clearly tampering with the machine of which they logged their shift patterns so that it didn’t give away his lateness.

“Not really.” She commented honestly.

Since she had opened the bar, it had only been a stream of regulars such as Frank through the door. Weekdays were often like that. Friday through the weekend was when the craziness began. There was always a possibility it would get busier in the evening, but today Dani didn’t have to worry about that, for she would be home and in bed before any of it began. 

“What’s up with you?” The question confused the girl, who responded only with a short hum whilst she took a customer’s order. As far as she had been concerned, nothing was wrong. She felt perfectly fine, but maybe her constant misery was too evident on her face to someone who knew her well. “You have that lost puppy look again.”

Dani shook her head, waiting to respond until the polite chatter with the woman she was serving passed. She was grateful for the woman’s interest in her day if it meant she could put off engaging in this conversation with her co-worker.

“I’m fine, just tired.”

“Reno keeping you up, huh?”   
  
Without a moment to consider, the name made her flinch. She hadn’t really thought about Reno since she had seen him the week before, and that hadn’t ended well. She didn’t _ want  _ to think about him, because thoughts of him brought on questions of doubt. Questions she couldn’t answer because she didn’t understand; such as why Tseng was asking about her, what he wanted. 

It wasn’t exactly a comforting thought to know you were the topic of a conversation between the Turks. Not a single person in Midgar wanted to know they were more involved with the Investigation Sector of the General Affairs Department in the Shinra building, for nothing good ever came of that. Dani was already too involved considering the unlikely friendship she had struck up with the red head. 

Now, all she could think about was how she should probably apologise, or at least listen to whatever Reno had to say. She had sort of, maybe, kind of thrown him out before he even had a chance to explain - not that he had made any attempt to. 

Hanson had clearly noticed her hesitation over the question, putting down the bottle opener he was holding. “Oh - trouble in paradise?”

That was the  _ last  _ thing she wanted, to discuss this with Hanson when clearly he enjoyed nothing more than taking digs at the man.

“It’s complicated.”

With that, she moved around the bar, heading to a seating area near the front window of the bar that had recently become empty - only three tables now being occupied inside the little room. To her dismay, Hanson followed shortly after, finishing serving the only customer at the bar before he continued his little spiel.

“Can I ask you a question?” Hanson asked warily, watching Dani whilst she wiped down one of the high tables in the corner of the establishment. “Why do you involve yourself with him? With the Turks? What’s in it for you?”

The question grated at her. As much as she loved Hanson, she didn’t appreciate his constant questions. She was a girl of privacy when it came to her private life, she always had been, and she wanted to keep it that way. Thus, in a short outburst even she didn’t expect, she tossed the cleaning rag onto the wooden surface and turned to face him, features cold. “Can I ask  _ you  _ a question? Why are you suddenly so interested in my relationship with Reno?” She snapped, tone louder than she expected “For once can you get your nose out of my personal life, because until you let it go you’re never going to find your own happiness!”

Hanson hadn’t expected her to counteract his question, especially whilst there were still customers in the room. She was usually so meek and polite, a ‘yes’ girl of sorts. Taking anything dealt out to her was one of her biggest traits, so he had predicted she would sit back and take the comment with how she did so many others.

It was clear no one was paying attention to their conversation, not even Frank, but Hanson was still weary of her outburst.

Dani kept her focus on her friend, an annoyance she couldn’t understand bubbling inside her. There was a flicker of fire in Hanson’s eye, she didn’t know what he was thinking,or why he was so succumbed with these ideas, but she saw it, before it disappeared just as quickly as it had arrived.

His entire mood shifted, shaking off the prior conversation as a playful encounter. ”Jeez, what crawled up your ass and died?”

Statement leaving his lips, he left her alone, walking back behind the bar and isolating Dani with her thoughts once again. She was grateful for the silence, in all honesty, not having expected herself to get so frustrated over something she had told herself was a casual relationship. Why was she so worked up about this? 

She shouldn’t have raised her voice, she’s not that type of person. All of this was getting to her more than she cared to admit. The conversation about her family had caused a tear to creep up on her eye, and it had returned now as she considered her life in full focus.

Maybe Hanson was right. What was she doing wasting her life on people she could never have? She didn’t understand why she couldn’t just leave it in the past, try and move on with her life. She was getting to a stage in her life, mid twenties beginning to take hold of her, that she wanted to start thinking about her future. She wouldn’t be this young barmaid forever, and she would be lying if she said she didn’t dream of starting a family one day - to have a chance to right her wrongs. 

Reno couldn’t give her any of that.

Even if he had wanted to, the very prospect of his job meant that every time he left for work, there was always the chance he wouldn’t return home. A Turk’s job was dangerous, there was never a guarantee that you would finish the job alive. Many times Reno had joked about his inevitable demise, and Dani could never deny it, for the possibility of him taking a sword through the chest seemed to increase by day. 

If anything, the recent events would be the perfect time to end things, and yet something kept her holding on to the possibility that things would turn out alright. This in itself ignited a new fear within her. Every meeting the two of them had, the word ‘casual’ popped into her mind, but now, as she thought about the possibility of ending things, something pulled her back, wanting to stop her from ever moving on. The very thought of even starting something with the red head always frightened her, but now she was beginning to ask those questions.

Until all those fake promises she had created in her mind were shattered into fragments.

It was as she decided to move back to the counter, a quick adjustment of her collar, when her fingers brushed over an unusual lump on the fabric. Had she not suddenly been aware of all her senses, she may have never picked up on it. It was small, barely noticeable in casual passing, but once she had found it, it was hard not to notice. 

Just as easy to unhook as it had been to find, the device slipped into her hand. It was tiny, no bigger than one of the flattened batteries she bought from the local store, but the circular holes on it’s upper side told exactly what it’s purpose was - it was to listen to her every word. 

Dani didn’t want to believe it had been put there by him, she forced herself to consider any other person who may have possibly placed it there, until she flipped the device over to reveal the logo of none other than Shinra engraved into the bottom.

_ Reno had put it on her.  _ Worse yet, the Turks were listening in on her day.

An overwhelming sensation rushed over her, and all at once her feet felt heavy, and her brain felt too light, the feeling knocking her backwards until she landed on a high stool. He couldn’t have - this surely couldn’t be Reno’s doing? And yet she knew it was. He had placed it there the prior week, the last time she had seen him, and all she could think about was how much he had heard. Worse yet, if every one of her work shirts had the same device. She hadn’t even left himalone for that long, only during the times she used the bathroom in the evening, so he must have placed it then.

Had he always been listening to her? She was certain there had never been a device there before. 

It was a mixture of fear, sadness and doubt. The fear mainly subsided in the realisation that this had occurred after Reno’s passing conversation that she was the topic of conversation with his boss. Was this just protocol, or was something going on Dani wasn’t aware of? 

Then the next emotion hit, that of the destroyed trust such a small action had provoked. In the strangest way, after such a long time by his side (for, in calculation they were nearing half a year of having known each other), Dani trusted the man with her life. Although he was only someone she slept with at first, he soon became an unlikely friend, until she found that he did make her feel safe, despite the general air of mystery around him.

Now, she felt  _ betrayed.  _ Reno had shattered whatever facade she had of him, only leaving her with questions with no answer. She wanted to try and see the positive, knowing that she had been safe as long as they had been listening, but she couldn’t. She felt, in a way, heartbroken, doubts flooding in about all the time she had known the Turk. Was everything a lie? Had he just been sleeping with her for information, instead of actually caring? Or was she making all this up in her head?

Whatever it was, the very thought of being used by someone she had genuinely begun to care about broke her, she wanted to sit there and break down. Had she not been mid-shift, she wouldn’t have been able to help the tears that threatened to fall. Being on the clock was, in fact, the only thing keeping her sane at the current moment.

She needed to speak to him, needed to confront him about whatever his intentions were. She could only hope he would tell her the truth.

But then again, how much could you really expect of a Turk?


	5. Arrogance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When trying to win someone over, Reno probably shouldn't turn to his ego.

The last thing Reno had expected that evening was to receive a call from the girl living in the slums. Not only was this unusual considering how their last meeting had ended, but excluding all that, the two never really arranged to see one another. Asking to meet wasn’t their style, they mostly just met up whenever the red head was feeling like taking a trip below plate.

In the back of his mind, he hoped that this trip would have been called out of pure desire for sex, for he wasn’t really in the mood for conversation right now. Work had not only been ‘kicking his butt’, as his partner Rude had called it when he was forced to wake Reno up from a nap in the executive lounge, but the threat Tseng had proposed to Dani’s life was weighing him down. He knew they still needed to discuss what had happened the last time he had seen her, and how the mention of his boss had just slipped out, but he really  _ really  _ hoped they would just ignore it, as least until he was finished with her up against whatever piece of furniture was closest.

When the outline of her small Slums apartment came into view, he pushed away the thought that they would have to have a discussion - Reno hated talking - and instead considered that he could just do whatever he wanted to do to her, and the rest could wait.

He remembered where the spare key was, easily reaching it from above the door frame for his height made that easy. Although he wondered how Dani herself managed to place it up here, for she was certainly a lot shorter than him. Nevertheless, he unlocked the door with an ease that told this was, at times, a routine. 

“Letting myself in,” he shouted as the door handle bent downwards “if you’re naked, I’m not responsible for what I may do to you-”

His face appeared in the doorway, but he stopped the moment he noticed what the girl held between her fingers.

“Oh.” Was all he mustered up, closing the door behind him, this time in anticipation of the argument that would ensue. He would have to do a lot of grovelling if he wanted sex tonight - although that wasn’t his style, so he reverted to the one thing he was good at “Well, guess I don’t have to ask you how your day went.”

Her expression told him it had completely backfired. “Yes, I’m sure you heard everything that went on!”

“Don’t be mad - let me explain!” A grovel? More like a pathetic attempt at calming her down before whatever emotion started pouring out; tears, anger, whatever she would inevitably begin to show. There wasn’t even anything he could explain if he wanted to. As far as she was concerned, he was listening in for no reason - and he couldn’t tell her the real reason anyway. 

“Explain what? That you were spying on me?”

“Well it wasn’t quite like that-” she shot him a glare “Okay yes, it was like that. But hey, nothing embarrassing was said! I didn’t catch you having sex with another man - or woman, if you’d be into that - and your record came out perfectly clear!”

Now his woeful attempts at comedy weren’t even used as a self defense mechanism to soften the blow, he was simply trying to excuse his actions without having to tell her the truth.

A lot of the time in his profession, Reno had to do things he didn’t like. He had to do bad tasks given to him that he didn’t enjoy, whether this be threatening, fighting, or even killing someone that he knew deep down didn’t deserve it. Yet, of all the moments in his career, he had never felt regret like how he did in that moment, an emotion he wasn’t used to

Regret. That was a funny thing.

What exactly did he regret? Was it planting the device on her? Or was it that he even got involved with the girl from the slums in the first place?

Or, was it the fact that he was finally beginning to come to terms with the fact that he maybe, slightly, possibly, just a little bit, might be falling in love with her?

“Just explain it to me, Reno.” There was a pleading tone in her voice. Although there was no sign of tears, her voice still cracked as though her life depended on his answer; in a way it did. “Tell me why you did it.”

A sigh left his lips as he answered in honesty. “I can’t.”

“Gods!” She actually screamed it this time, distress creeping onto her features. “I can’t believe I ever thought you were different to all the other Shinra dogs, I- you know I actually trusted you! Goddamn Reno, I would have trusted you with my life if it came to it.”

That stung the Turk, hearing her confess that she trusted him, for that was something he had come to realise he had wanted. 

When he didn’t reply, clearly deliberating with himself, Dani let out a scoff. “Maybe you are  _ exactly  _ like they say you are.” She mumbled under her breath, and for a moment, she could have sworn the look that flashed through Reno’s eyes was one of hurt, before he snapped back to reality.

“Do you know what, maybe I am!” His voice was harsher than he had intended, but he guessed that was his subconscious hurt. He had been called a lot of names over his years working under Shinra’s name, but somehow this one actually affected him. Normally he would shrug off the comment, but a defensive barrier was built almost immediately, and this was what he relied on “Maybe I am exactly how they say I am. I’m a Turk! I’m evil, I’m just like Hanson always warned.”

A shake of the head told Reno that Dani didn’t believe whatever act he was putting on. Either that, or she was still coming to terms with the fact that he had heard the many conversations she had had with her friend. For the girl, it was a bit of both.

“Don’t pin this all on me, Princess.” She  _ hated  _ that nickname with a burning passion. He had called her it the first few times they had met, to which she just grimaced and insisted he call her Dani instead. “You could have stopped this at any time, but you kept coming back because you just couldn’t get enough of me.”

“Oh - get over yourself!”

Reno chuckled, a shrill, harsh sound that dug straight through her. “Yet I know for a fact I’m still the best you had - the best you will ever have.” 

The size of his ego had always been unbearable to Dani, only amplified in moments of anger. There would have been better things to say when he was already in her bad books, the silence that answered him told that.

“Are you really willing to throw that all away over a measly listening device? Don’t be so dramatic, I know you never made those sounds you do when I’m between your legs before me.”

What had first begun as an attempt to win her trust back had become a full blown argument. The escalation of the conversation, most of which he was at fault for, wasn’t something Reno was proud of. He didn’t want to argue with someone he considered as close as her, but his speech ran away with him, and all he could do was provoke and provoke her until they were past the point of no return.

He could have finished it all so easily, at least given her answers to her questions, and then allowed her to decide the way they finished.

He wanted to tell her why the device was there, but it was better for the both of them that she didn’t know. Now, he was the Reno people saw on the job, he wasn’t the Reno she knew from all the time they had spent together - the one she thought she meant something to - he was the one who the people she spoke to hated so much. The one whose mouth was unbearable, whose presence was well known as the most unejoyable of Shinra’s personnel, and Dani hated it.

He couldn’t tell her, Tseng had made that clear

_ Reno sat, stone faced, staring daggers into his boss from where he stood at the end of the conference table.  _

_ “I don’t understand…” His voice almost came out in a whisper. This was the first instance he was hit with the realisation of how much he cared for the girl, listening to Tseng’s explanation of the danger that had been posed to her life. _

_ “You don’t need to understand, Reno.” Tseng commented plainly, as only he could. “That’s not what your job involves. I’m asking you to do this as a part of your employment, so treat it like every other task I send you on.” _

_ Reno pursed his lips together, looking at his superior with a glare that could kill. It was no secret that the Turks didn’t always agree with the tasks they were given to do, but they always went through with them because it was part of the job. He had never been asked to directly breach someone he knew’s trust, however, and that was something he struggled to come to terms with. He had a lot of questionable morals, that was certain, but trust was something he took rather seriously. _

_ There were very few people in his life he actually considered reliable, the number being limited to three. That was his partner Rude, Tseng out of the pure fact that he was his commander, and the third was Dani. Three was already a small number, he would never want to lower it to two. _

_ “Reno, I mean it.” Tseng’s voice was stern and demanding, planting a small seed of worry within Reno that the threats may be more than he was showing. “She cannot know.” _

_ Reno simply shook his head in response, a huff passing his lips as he muttered something along the lines of ‘This fucking place, man’. He headed towards the door, only stopping when Tseng called his name once again. He spun on his heel to look at the older man. _

_ “Promise me, you will not tell her.” _

_ Reno rolled his eyes, knowing he had no other option. “Yeah yeah, I won’t tell her, boss.” _

“So that’s it?” Dani spoke, voice laced in anger as he was pulled back to reality. “You have nothing else to say to me?”

He considered it, he considered telling her everything, but he knew that Tseng would hear, and then he would be as good as dead, so against his better judgement, he simply gave a shrug.

Seeing such a careless response from him shattered Dani’s heart. This was the Reno she had heard stories about, the one that didn’t care for anyone but himself and his own personal gain, and it was breaking her heart. She wanted so badly to make up with him, and continue as though nothing had happened, but he had made that clear that was no longer possible. The Reno that had walked in that door, the one she had spent so much time with the past few months, was not the Reno standing in front of her now. 

“Please,” she went to say, but the sound came out more as a weak whisper, her own voice failing her “leave me alone. I don’t want to see you again.”

Although she had tried to hold it together, she couldn’t help the tears that began to form in her eyes, threatening to spill over the edge as she spoke. Seeing this, hearing her demand, Reno tried to step forward, cold exterior melting away at the sight of her upset, but she simply held a hand up to his chest to stop him from moving any further. 

“Reno, please go.”

He let out a defeated huff, knowing he should respect her wishes. It was the safer option after all - if he left her alone, the risk to her life might at least dissipate. He tried to tell himself this, but he didn’t believe it. He so deeply wanted to just hug her and apologise, but instead, he allowed his feet to lead him to the door, mimicking the exact same routine he had been through the time before.

Dani followed him along, shaky breathing showing that she was attempting to calm her down, but to no prevail. When Reno exited the threshold, able to turn to look at her, he could see the tears now cascading down her tanned cheeks, making the girl grateful she hadn’t been wearing mascara at the time. 

The sight in front of him was something he had never wanted to see, especially when he had been the reason behind it.

It was one last feeble attempt to show he was sorry.

“Dani,” he began, heart threatening to beat out of his chest with the speed it was going at “I lov-”

The door slammed in his face, leaving the girl the other side open mouthed. She hadn’t heard the rest of the statement, and she was grateful she hadn't. She didn’t want to know that, she didn’t want to hear him say the thing she had wanted all along. A shaky sob finally left her lips, every emotion that had been threatening to spill doing so all at once, and she slumped down to the ground in one quick motion, her legs no longer able to hold her.

On the other side of the door, Reno froze. He had really just said that, and the worst part was, he knew how filled with truth it was. And now he had to stand facing the door of the girl who’s feelings he had clearly hurt, filled to the brim with guilt and hatred for himself.

At least Tseng would be happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! sorry for the delay in updates, i hit a little bit of a block in the editing process.
> 
> during all that, though, i did come up with another idea for a fic involving reno and most likely another oc - as well as a sort of 'love triangle' involving rufus, so that may be the next thing i write if anyone would be interested. i had a rather *interesting* dream involving it all, so that would say a lot. i want to actually be able to write reno like reno, as i realise he's very out of character here - so that would be my next plan. also including a slow burn - aka my fave.
> 
> thank you for the kudos/comments/bookmarks etc, they mean a lot!


	6. Decadence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dani indulges in too much thinking.

Silence. Silence wasn’t the best thing to involve herself in during her shift. 

The truth was, whilst she was serving the regulars and keeping herself busy, Dani’s brain had been so busy contemplating what she was doing with her life that any other task felt too overwhelming. Every time she tried to bring herself into the present, talking with customers or simply engaging in general work tasks, she found herself wanting to cry, and so she thought it better to simply _stop thinking._

Naturally, now as she found herself sitting in the back of the pub, taking a break from the chaos of the shift, she couldn’t do anything other than think.

She couldn’t even excuse her emotions that day, for there was no reason for her to feel so overwhelmed.

It wasn’t anything like the mood swings she experienced with hormones; she had become quite good at recognising those at this point. Her overwhelming emotion during that time was always anger, constantly flicking between the want to get up on a table and dance, and also wanting to hit someone in the face.

No, this wasn’t anything like the emotions she was used to feeling. This was gloomy, as though there was a constant rain cloud hanging over her head that she just couldn’t shake.

If she had thought about it hard enough, it was clear it all stemmed from the situation with Reno. She wouldn’t let herself believe this to be true, even if the answer _was_ painfully obvious, for it had been weeks since she had discovered the small device that brought her world crashing down around her, and in her mind, she should be over it by now.

Candidly, she wasn’t anywhere close to being ‘over it’, for she hadn’t even given the situation a thought - and that was most likely creeping up on her now. 

Since kicking the redhead out of her apartment in what she told herself would be for good this time, Dani had ignored every emotion that had threatened to bubble over as a result. Whenever she swallowed her feelings, she reminded herself about the breaking of trust - told herself that she was only ignoring those feelings because she didn’t want to confront the reason why the Turks were even tracking her in the first place. In reality, it was because she wanted to ignore the very thing Reno had said before she shut the door on him for what she had intended to be for forever.

Dani was rather accustomed to having relations of a sexual kind. She, in no way, slept around all the time, and she would never judge those who did, but she wasn’t a stranger to the ideas of ‘casual sex’. It had what her relationship with Reno had begun as, and how she had always intended it to stay. Not even that long before his sudden admittal of feelings had they discussed their content over the relaxed nature of their relationship:

_“I like spending time with you, y’know.” Reno spoke suddenly, breaking up the shuffling sound of clothes being pulled back on._

_The two were hidden just out of sight of the one window without a curtain in the open area of Diablos, both still heavy breathing from the events before. The man had taken a stand, but Dani remained somewhat sprawled out against the fabric of the booth whilst she dressed herself._

_His engagement in conversation had shocked her, in complete honesty. They spoke, that was a given for most of the time she couldn’t shut the redhead up, but that was usually before they had sex. Afterwards, they tended to just change and go their separate ways - or they’d at least catch their breath before any discussions of their days occurred._

_Raising an eyebrow, she asked “What do you mean?”_

_Reno gave a shrug in response, showing more casualness rather than lack of answer, as he turned around to face her. He pulled the zipper up on his trousers, still shirtless (a sight Dani didn’t mind seeing by any means), as he replied. “Just ‘cause it’s easy with you.” Whilst he contemplated the rest of his sentence, he bent to the ground to pick up the white shirt they discarded a while ago. “You wouldn’t believe the amount of chicks I sleep with who think that means I’m in love with ‘em, or something.”_

_With a chuckle, Dani shook her head. “Wow, Reno, you sure know how to make a girl feel special.”_

_He sent a wink in her direction, buttoning up his shirt to his signature halfway line, only to realise he had done it wrong, having to undo the process._

_“You know what I mean, Princess.”_

_“Dani.” She commented simply, rather tired of having to confirm this to the man. She didn’t want to become some sort of repetitive parrot when it came to reminding him what she preferred to be called, it was just that the use of the nickname ‘Princess’ always made her feel like another one of his girls from the Honeybee Inn._

_“Whatever you say-” he turned to the reflective tiling on the wall to make sure he was buttoning his shirt correctly this time, and Dani could just see the smirk on his lips “-Princess.”_

_Almost as though she had been expecting his retort, she sent one of the scraggy pillows in the booth flying in his direction, holding back a laugh when the unexpected blow knocked him off balance._

When it came to sex, Dani had always thought those stories adults often told you about ‘no strings attached’ always leading to love were bull. She had managed to get around it plenty of times without even giving a second glance to the person she was sleeping with. 

Really, she should have known Reno was to be different from all the others from the start.

Things had always felt different with him, but she had constantly put it down to how different he was to the regular men she knew. She usually surrounded herself with those that had grown up and lived in the slums, men that you would maybe give a second look to, but usually their personality ruined them completely - no one really had any interesting conversation topics below the plate. Reno, on the other hand. He was in a league of his own.

There was something so electric about him, and it didn’t just come from his preference of lightning in battle. Every meeting she had with the man left her wanting more, and she had certainly made sure that was what she had gotten.

Still, she never thought that the spark she had felt for the past few months would have ever developed into a feeling of… whatever it was.

Perhaps it may have been a feeling more than lust, deep down she knew exactly what she was feeling, but the girl didn’t want to dwell on that anymore. Reno was gone, and she intended for it to be for forever.

But then again, she never really got what she wanted.

A sigh passed the girl’s red stained lips, drawn back from her thoughts by a gentle buzz from her pocket. Her phone screen told that she had a new message, a simple document link from Tifa, and Dani’s heart stopped. 

She had made a comment in passing the week before to the girl, who had been stressing about a new menu at Seventh Heaven, about how frazzled she had been feeling lately. Ever a beacon of wisdom, her fellow barmaid asked her what was on her mind, and Dani’s natural lie was simply that she was intrigued by the men in suits she had seen lurking around. 

Tifa, obviously, knew who she was talking about immediately, and she had also heard the stories about a particular ‘messy-looking’ member of the Turks wandering around the slums lately. Her knowledge of this luckily stopped at the fact that the man had been seen, and Dani was grateful whoever had fed her the information hadn’t expanded on his exact whereabouts. 

Suggesting it may ease Dani’s confusion - which was less confusion about the men themselves, but she still had to play naive for her friend - Tifa offered to send her some information about the Turks. 

Dani had completely forgotten she had accepted, or at least she thought Tifa wouldn’t pull through on her offer after nothing was heard for a few weeks, but clearly she had been wrong, for the document was very clearly labelled **ADMINISTRATIVE RESEARCH**.

Her stomach began twisting in knots whilst her finger hovered over the link. At the time, Dani had believed snooping for information was a good idea, for it might have helped her find closure, but now she wasn’t sure if that was what she even wanted. She was trying her hardest to leave Reno in the past, and opening the document may just bring back those thoughts and feelings from before at a more intense speed.

Worse still, she could find something that hinted to her own danger.

Although the second option was unlikely, it had been lingering over her head ever since Reno had discussed his boss’ mention of her name. That was what drove her to open the file - that, and a quick glance to the clock to ensure she still had time left on her break.

It seemed to take forever to load, and once it had, Dani partly wished she had never opened it in the first place.

Without questioning how or why Tifa had such extensive information, she scanned the first page, neatly organised into laying out the chapters the document would cover.

**_‘1-3:_ ** _Introduction to Administrative Research_

 **_4-10:_ ** _Known Past Members_

 **_11-25:_ ** _Known Current Members_

 **_26-30:_ ** _History’_

All in a way, intrigued her, but it was that of the current members she was drawn to. Tifa, of course, knew Reno. Dani knew this from the time he had waltzed into her bar as though he was an old friend. How many of the others did she know about?

She supposed the information wasn’t just compiled by Tifa, though. It would make sense for the main cell of AVALANCHE to collect information on the people who spoiled their plans the most, but she still wondered just how extensive their knowledge was in comparison to what really went on behind the scenes.

Despite her fretting, her fingers still scrolled down the page until she was met with an unfamiliar face spread out over the page. The photo was bad quality, presumably gathered during attempts to hack into Shinra’s system, but the image was still chilling enough.

A man with long, dark hair pulled away from his face, staring into the camera. He had a tilak in the centre of his forehead, and piercing brown eyes, but what startled Dai the most was how stripped of emotion he appeared. Even his eyes told no tale of happiness, or even anger; they were just blank.

‘ **_Tseng_ **’ the name read, immediately stating how the man was, as far as AVALANCHE was aware, the highest ranking Turk. That alone made her face dull of any colour. 

_Highest ranking_ meant he was Reno’s _boss._

He was the man who had asked about her.

Dani couldn’t understand why she was so naturally afraid of the man. For all she knew, he could have been the kindest person to walk Gaia (a stretch considering his status as a Turk to begin with), but she just couldn’t shake the initial feeling she had when she had studied his eyes.

Even in photographs, she could usually assess someone’s emotions, a talent she always joked came from the years looking back at her mother’s face in the few photographs she kept. 

What scared her most about the lifelessness Tseng had behind his eyes was how much it reminded her of her father. 

He was one of the only other men she had ever seen with such a detachment from reality, and it terrified her, for her father was everything she never wanted to turn out to be.

Yet, by leaving her family, she had done exactly that.

Her father had been a ruthless man, who’s biggest fear factor was his ability to act; to pretend that he was the happiest man in the world. He made Dani and her siblings - her mother too, before it all went downhill - feel loved, and then one day he would act as though they didn’t exist.

Growing up, Dani had always put his hot and cold attitude down to the stress of work. She was young, and gullible, and her mother had just given birth to her younger brother - she thought that that happiness was untouchable. Then one day she woke up and he was gone, and he took that happiness with him.

Shaking her head to remove the memories, she moved on from the image, not having the time to read all about the man now - she would do that when she was home instead, mainly so she could avoid walking in the dark with all sorts of terrors. Instead, she scrolled down on the hunt for the face that she had been so caught up with all day.

She didn’t have to scroll far, for he was the profile listed just below Tseng’s. Did that mean he was on some level of importance? There was no listing of his rank, but on layout alone, she assumed it meant she had underestimated the importance of Reno’s role.

Being a Turk didn’t necessarily always mean you had power, and Dani had, foolishly, believed that this was where Reno fit in. Maybe she was wrong, maybe the man she had been dealing with for such a long time was more of a threat than she ever gave him credit for.

Somehow she couldn’t picture Reno as anything other than a bumbling mess, even though that contradicted the image she had from the one time she had come across him during the job. His entire personality suggested he would be the most insufferable person to work with, she struggled to imagine him on a pedestal - not _her_ Reno.

Except, he wasn’t her Reno anymore. She supposed he never really had been.

━

“Right,” Hanson spoke clumsily as he walked by Dani’s side, “I’m fed up of you pouting all the time.”

Dani looked at him in confusion, the outline of the slum houses behind him passing by in a blur. The two friends had, unusually, finished at the same time due to a scheduling error, getting the rare opportunity to wander back home together. 

Hanson didn’t live too far from Dani, but he resided deeper into Sector Seven, a small shack he shared with two other adults of similar ages - although the girl had never met either of them. From what her friend had mentioned, they were both male, and he didn’t particularly like either of their social climbing abilities for, at the end of the day, they were all still living below the plate. 

Raising an eyebrow, Dani’s feet brought her to a halt while she responded. “I’m not pouting.”

The comedy in her reply was that as she spoke, stopping and folding her arms across her chest, there was a pout plastered across her lips, clear as day.

Hanson only pointed at her face, tearing her hand from where she had it folded stiffly so that he could cup it with a gentle touch. His features were soft, looking at her with genuine concern as he hummed to himself.

“Danica Selma I am speaking to you as your best friend right now.” She went to argue, probably about the ‘best friend’ comment, but he cut her off. “Don’t let a guy - especially a guy like _that_ \- make you feel like this.”

Huffing, Dani began to wish she had ever told Hanson about breaking things off with Reno in the way that she had. 

When she saw the brunette after calling off whatever it was she had with the Turk, she felt wrong lying. Of course, she didn’t tell him the complete details, but she did tell him that they argued. She just happened to conveniently leave out that Reno had been spying on her for God knows how long.

Hanson had, at first, assumed that she was unphased by it based on how nonchalantly she told the story, and Dani had, too, believed it didn’t bother her. However, as the weeks travelled on, the curly haired girl became more distant, and both parties began to realise just how torn up she actually was over losing someone like that.

“It’s not that-” Dani began in defense of herself, but a simple glare from her friend shut her up. They both knew it was a lie.

“Normally I would stand here and tell you ‘I told you so’, but I’ll take the high road on this one.” Technically, he had just inadvertently told her the same thing. “So instead, I’m taking you out!”

“What? No, H, that isn’t what I-”

“I don’t care! We’re going to go out with some of our friends, and you are going to forget about Reno. Don’t complain, I’ll do all the work, all you have to do is make yourself look pretty.”

Dani looked down at her current outfit, the work uniform she usually wore, and Hanson seemed to read her mind on that.

“Wear something other than jeans and a blouse.”

She wanted to argue, tell him it was a stupid idea and would just make her feel worse, but the thing with Hanson was that once he set his mind to something, he wouldn’t back down.

In defeat, she nodded, accepting his offer, and he let out an obnoxious squeal of excitement, tugging her forward with the hand he was still holding. It was that moment Dani considered just how drunk she would have to be to put up with the guy on a night out. And that was saying something, considering she wasn’t necessarily a big drinker; for someone who worked in a bar, at least.

 _Gods,_ her life was turning into one big romantic comedy, wasn’t it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh-oh, dani's doing a little of her own research! little bit of filler in a way for this chapter and the next, but i'm developing dani a little more while i have the chance - aka shit's about to go downnn.
> 
> i'm not very structured with my updates but i've decided that i'm going to try and post new chapters on fridays! then there may be the occasional update on a monday if i'm ahead of myself. hoping to try and stick to this the best i can, but please excuse me if i miss the odd week:)
> 
> hope you're all doing okay, and i hope you enjoyed this chapter, i'm very grateful for the support i get!


	7. Fixation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On a night out with friends, Dani ends up with more questions than what she started with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for all your lovely comments on the last chapter, they make me so happy! as promised because i'm ahead of myself in writing and editing, an extra update! messy, but an additional update nonetheless!

“I look like an idiot.”

Danica Selma hated wearing dresses. Not only did she find them unflattering on her figure, but she just generally hated the way they felt. She wasn’t a fan of having her legs out, as more often than not she found herself freezing throughout the night, and she certainly wasn’t a fan of the constant terror that a part of her curved figure would burst the seams on the fabric.

It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate other fashions, for she thought some people looked beautiful in the tiny coverings, but she would have much rather just dressed up her regular jeans and t-shirt combination. She had a good eye for fashion, knew what colours and styles suited her, and she knew she probably would have felt a hell of a lot better if she had just put on a dressier pair of leather pants and a cropped pine green shirt to still have that sense of ‘night out’.

Yet now she stood in front of her apartment mirror, sparkling blue dress hugging her body tightly.

Hanson stood behind her, clasping his hands together in excitement at the view. “You do not! You look incredible.”

“You’re unbearable.” Dani sighed, hands reaching up to undo one of the _three_ necklaces Hanson had placed on her.

The dress was beautiful, she would at least give him that. It was a sort of cyan colour, made out of a sparkling thread that appeared like glitter when it caught the light. It was off the shoulder, but she was grateful that it at least had long sleeves that covered down to her wrist for protection against the cold, because she wasn’t getting much of that considering it cut off just below her bum. 

So yes, it was beautiful, the issue was it just wasn’t _her._

Aside from the fact that she was so used to skin tight jeans and a pair of heels when she went out, blue wasn’t her colour. Her darker tan skin tone meant that deeper, richer colours were what looked best on her - hence her affection for the emerald green of her work uniform, and her regular ‘off-duty’ outfit which usually consisted of a wine red t-shirt. Blue, nevermind the lighter blue tone she had been placed in, just didn’t do it for her. 

“Maybe this was a bad idea...” She felt like a whining child, but Dani just couldn’t help it. Her mood right now was good for nothing other than staying in bed and most likely eating a lot of food. In one quick motion, she stepped back from the mirror, finally tearing her eyes away from her reflection, and collapsed on her bed, the furniture making a loud groan when her weight fell upon it.

It certainly felt like a breakup, and whilst she wasn’t one to act like a teenager over things, she hadn’t helped her situation by oppressing those feelings for so long.

Then there was the other part of her brain nagging at her, the part that told her she shouldn’t go out because she needed to properly read the document Tifa had sent her. 

“Dani, it’s been over a month.” Hanson murmured, but this time there was a trace of sympathy in his voice. Truthfully, he had never seen Dani like this. He knew she wasn’t one for parties and all that flamboyant stuff, but he had never seen her so _distant_. There was something wrong with her, and he knew it. “You can’t keep ignoring it, you have to move on with your life.” 

He tugged a chair from under her dining table that was cramped in the corner, moving so that he could take a straddle position on the seat next to her body.

Resting his chin on the tattered wood of the chair spine, he breathed out. “You actually liked him, didn’t you?”

Dani looked up at her friend, her eyes vacant of tears but filled with her answer. Just from one look at her, Hanson knew exactly what she would have replied, and his features twisted in a gentle frown of sensitivity. 

Upon seeing the look he gave, one that she interpreted to be pity, the girl with the curly haired let out a frustrated groan, bringing her hands up to rub at her face. “You might as well tell me I told you so now.”

“Dani, I didn’t know you liked him.” Hanson’s entire demeanour had changed, which shocked his friend considering this was the same guy who had reprimanded her repeatedly since he found out about her ‘relationship’. “I thought you guys were just hooking up, I had no idea you liked the guy.”

“We were just hooking up, it’s my fault for catching feelings in the first place.” The girl responded, finally sitting up. She used her hands as her prop, left cheek resting against her shoulder whilst she looked over in the brunette’s direction.

“Been there done that.” Hanson chuckled, and Dani found herself laughing along, even though the statement lacked any actual humour. They didn’t always get to have conversations like this, but when they did, it was nice. Hanson was a good friend, despite all of his nosey habits when it came to the girl’s sex life.

“Tell you what,” he spoke again, “you put on something you’re more comfortable in, and we’ll go get takeout instead. The others can have fun without us.”

Despite the smile that graced her lips, and the warm feeling she felt knowing her friend was willing to do that, Dani shook her head. She was being stubborn, she realised that. If Hanson could change his tune, then maybe she could warm up to the idea of partying in a skin tight dress. Plus, it would be nice to hang out with some others from the slums - not that she had any idea who was coming - and the socialisation may be exactly what she needed to get back on her feet.

“No, I want to go now.” She admitted, and before the sentence even finished leaving her lips, Hanson was on his feet with his arms in the air in a victory pose.

“Then let’s go get shitfaced!”

━

Three seconds. Three seconds was all it took for Dani to regret her decision.

Considering she worked in Wallmarket, she should have expected to some extent expected how the atmosphere would be in the club Hanson had found. It wasn’t too far away from Diablos in the market’s layout, and although Dani suggested they could just go to their place of work for drinks once she realised where they were going, Hanson insisted the club would be fine. 

_‘Fine’_ was certainly a strange way to describe it.

It stunk of alcohol from the moment they stepped inside, the smell attacking Dani’s nostrils to the point it nearly knocked her backwards. Busy, but not to the point of being unbearable, there was a loud buzz of chatter over the pumping sound of music that immediately told the two friends they would most likely have sore throats from screaming at each other over the bass. 

A crowded bar could just be seen at the back of the venue, but to get there would mean pushing through the groups of intoxicated adults on the dance floor - and Dani wasn’t even sure if most of them were adults. 

No matter what her opinion, Hanson took no time in grabbing her hand and guiding her through the dance floor, which was probably for the best as Dani herself was unable to see anything other than pink strobe lighting as they moved. He walked with purpose, until a small group in the corner of the bar came into sight, and Dani’s eyes focused on exactly who they were.

A taller man, dark black hair and layers of stubble around his chin shouted out to Hanson, the latter dropping Dani’s hand and rushing to greet his friend, but the girl in the blue dress couldn’t figure out where she had seen him before. This became apparent a mere few seconds later, as she was scanning the small crowd that huddled there, and her eyes landed on Tifa’s features. 

Tifa spotted her at the same time, and both girls must have mirrored each other’s confused look, for a short, chestnut-haired girl by Tifa’s side let out a chuckle, turning to greet Hanson in turn. 

Whilst Dani was happy there were familiar faces there, she was mainly confused by the newfound knowledge that Hanson knew Tifa, and yet they had never discovered that amongst themselves. The coworkers spent most of their time together when their shifts coincided, and Dani spent most of her free time - even more after the breakdown of things with Reno - running errands around Sector Seven with her fellow barmaid. It was almost too much of a coincidence that they would share a mutual friend without it ever being brought up in discussion.

At least, now, she could understand where she knew the man’s face from. Unable to remember his name, she could place the image of his face at Seventh Heaven when she passed through on minor visits. She was never there enough to know the ins and outs of the people’s lives. 

Still, she was so unbelievably hung up on how these people knew Hanson. Sure, he lived in Sector Seven, but he spent little to no time there. Most of his life consisted around Wallmarket, and most of his friends resided there.

“I hope you don’t mind me inviting these guys.” Hanson spoke up, forcing his friend to actually look towards him. “I remembered you knew Tifa, and I thought it might be nice for you two to hang.”

Dani frowned, her face a picture of confusion. She was sure she had never mentioned her connection with the girl before. In fact, she had never mentioned Tifa’s name to anyone outside of Marlene the few times she had cared for the young girl, and to Tifa herself - maybe to Reno once. Even Tifa herself looked confused.

Choosing to believe her memory was just betraying her , Dani forced a smile onto her face, reaching forward and enveloping her friend in a hug. Tifa accepted it happily, and her familiar scent overpowered that of the bar’s odour. It was comforting, a sort of vanilla, but with hints of floral undertones within it. 

She went to pull away, but was surprised that Tifa still held onto her body tightly.

“Did you get my text?” She asked warily under her breath, and very nearly shivered.

She _had_ gotten the text, and she had begun to read the document. If anything, she would rather be at home reading it right now. There was a part of her that also felt guilty. She was completely lying about her use for the document, it was simply for her own selfish indulgement, but she couldn’t tell anyone this. As far as she knew, the Turks could still have eyes on her.

Once she had felt the older girl nod, Tifa let her go, her concerned expression being replaced with a much happier one.

Dani wasn’t aware her emotions were showing so obviously on her face until the other man spoke up.

“Well you seem like a ray of sunshine.” He joked, grinning to himself when it elicited a small chuckle out of Dani herself. She had to admit that his smile was very charming, and she found herself mimicking it as he outstretched a hand towards her. “Biggs, nice to meet’ya.”

Taking his hand, Dani gave a joking bow. “Danica, but most people call me Dani.”

He tilted his head to one side, scanning her up and down. “I like Danica more, it suits you.”

A classic flirt, but Dani couldn’t help but be flattered by it in a strange way. That by no means meant she would give into it, but it definitely helped get her mind off of certain things.

The girl by Biggs’ side looked even shorter in comparison to his tall frame, but appeared just as bouncy when she saw her opportunity to pull the curly haired girl into her arms. Without a warning on the motion, Dani felt herself having to fight to stay balanced, but her shock only amused the others until she was stable enough to hug the friendly female back.

“Ignore him, he’d flirt with anything with a pulse.” The small girl laughed, pulling back and winking at Dani. “I’m Jessie.”

“Well that’s a blatant lie - I haven’t flirted with you, yet.”

“Not intentionally.” Jessie responded.

Dani ignored their playful dynamic, but was pleased to see Tifa and Hanson’s friends were so amusing. “It’s good to meet you, Jessie.”

“As much as I’m enjoying the introductions,” Hanson began “I brought Dani here so she can forget about one idiot guy, so I think it’s time we got some drinks in.”

The taller of the two men looked at her frame, an eyebrow raised. “Break up, huh?”

“Something like that.” Was her only response.

He grinned, a cunning, but friendly grin that Dani couldn’t draw her eyes away from. “Then I think it’s only fair I buy the lady her first round.”

“You do that, Biggs.” Tifa perked up, her silky voice a comforting exchange within the harshness of the club “I need to have a quick chat with Dani, though.”

Biggs motioned his hand to the side, creating a pathway so that the two girls could travel to another area of the club. Without any idea where she was going, Dani let her friend pull her towards a door, only steadying as they walked between the two now friends she had made that night, having to turn to the side so that they could squeeze through the gap.

Tugging on her arm until the sign for the ladies toilets, Tifa entered the room with her older counterpart not too far behind, watching in amusement as the girl opened each stall door to check they were alone.

It wasn’t any surprise it was only them in there, the toilets were simply a little dingy room with three modesty shacks stuck in the middle. She didn’t think anyone would be brave enough to actually use the germ infested cubicles, you’d rather just take your chance squatting in the corner of a quiet alleyway.

Once Tifa was sure they were alone, she spun around on her heel.

“First of all - boyfriend?” She said, an accusing glare sent in Dani’s direction. Although it wasn’t necessarily a surprise to Tifa, for her and Dani weren’t exactly the closest of friends in the world, she had at least thought they were close enough for a detail like that to be disclosed.

Considering she had very recently asked the girl for information on the Turks, it wasn’t exactly as though she could simply drop the name of the man into conversation. “He wasn’t my boyfriend.”

Tifa understood immediately, giving a curt nod before changing the subject to what she clearly dragged her friend in there to talk about. 

“Did you read the document?” She asked, leaning against the run-down heating device, hands folded carefully behind her.

“I skimmed it through.” Dani answered honestly.

Her friend glanced down at her shoes, mumbling something that Dani couldn’t hear, before meeting her eye once again. “Be careful, alright? The Turks don’t like the people who start asking about them.”

A part of Dani wanted to tell her, wanted to just admit exactly what had happened here, for if anyone would understand, it would be Tifa. She was one of the kindest people she had ever met, emotionally shy at moments, but she would always respect the other person’s privacy and their feelings - even if she did disagree with the ethics as a whole.

“You know me, I’m always careful.” A blatant lie, they both knew that. Dani had a habit of not thinking before acting, which was what got her in the situation with the Turks in the first place. She could be calculated when she needed to be, but never relied on this. “Anyway - you know Hanson?”

Now it was Tifa’s turn to shuffle between her feet, and Dani could have sworn she could see something flash behind the gloss of her eyes, although she couldn’t put her finger on what. “Just hobby stuff.”

Dani almost snorted “Hanson, hobbies? His only hobbies are having sex and being a pain in the ass.”

That pulled a snigger out Tifa, but it was clear she was using the joke to get out of the conversation. She turned to the mirror, tidying herself up with a soft grin. “Shall we go back? I’m sure Biggs will be missing you.”

Sharing a laugh, Dani questioned “Is he really as bad as Jessie made out?”

Tifa wore a small smirk as she looked over to her “That depends on if you want to find out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter wasn't my best writing by any means, it was rushed and a bit of a filler. it kind of wasn't important, but it also sort of was;) few hints getting dropped
> 
> despite my awkward writing, i did enjoy bringing biggs and jessie into the story - they won't be a big part by any means, but i wanted another sort of nod to the og. i was actually considering writing another chapter involving the night out to develop a bit more of a dynamic but i realise you're all here for reno, and even i'm missing him right now. 
> 
> the next chapter brings my story back into the actual drama, so i want to get to that i think. dani's going to get a visitor... next update on friday!


	8. Complexity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A visitor to the slums creates more of a threat than Dani imagined.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this update was up super late, it was a lot longer than usual.
> 
> this is 6,000 words. i normally write around 3,000. my fingers hurt:') enjoy!

The first rank of the Turks wasn’t one for involving himself with the people of the slums. Tseng tried to avoid going below the plate as much as possible, visits being limited to those to Sector Five to see the Ancient, and an occasional task that he felt too miniscule to bother his subordinates with.

So now as he stood, at the entrance to the sleazier area of the slums - that of Wallmarket - he was reminded of exactly why he no longer enjoyed it.

The night had turned into early morning, that was one thing, but Wallmarket wasn’t affected by the time of day. Sure, some establishments had been closed for some time, but most hadn’t even begun to think about closing, customers still flooding through the doors. Even the outlets that had yet already closed gave a sense of depletion, worn down windows and shelves a sign that their services had most likely been used more than enough. 

To say this area was so close to that of Sector Five, the part of the slums he didn’t necessarily mind, it was a whole other world away. Where in Sector Five, you would see the orphans from the Leaf House running around the streets to help as many people with their shopping and daily chores as they could - the Honeybee Inn girls in Wallmarket were certainly there to help, but for very different reasons. 

Field work wasn’t his area of expertise. It had been a while since Tseng had undergone a task himself, but this one was different. This one had to be kept secret from Reno until he had assessed the situation himself. Rude could have done it, but the boss had a gut-feeling that with enough pestering, the more silent of the other two Turks would probably cave to his partner’s questioning. 

There was no doubt those in Wallmarket knew who he was, but most appeared way too intoxicated to care about Tseng’s judgemental stare. He suspected that, even if it were broad daylight, everyone would still give him a wide berth based purely on the outfit he wore, and what that signified down in the slums.

He saw her from afar, standing on her tiptoes to reach the lock that held the door together of Diablos. Tseng wouldn’t have expected any less. Conducting research into those he was involved with was his speciality, and he was surprised her smaller frame of only five foot two was even able to reach the lock with a stretch. Of course, her positioning would make sense, for it was a Sunday, and the pub didn’t close its doors until two in the morning, meaning it had been forty minutes since the girl had closed up shop.

Her shift patterns were easily memorable, rotating on a fortnightly basis, and the man found himself lucky that he just happened to have spare time on the day that she was the only member of staff left to close the bar.

Taking steady steps forward as though he were trying to keep the stealth he was so used to adapting, the Turk treated it like an official mission. It was, in fact, one for his own assessment - a mere testing of the waters. 

In the weeks that had passed since discovering the girl that his subordinate had been involved with, Tseng had taken somewhat of a personal interest in her life. In herself, she had very little evidence to pose herself as a threat to Shinra, and that was what surprised him the most. A troubled childhood was usually the persuading factor for a vendetta against those that he worked for and their control of the world, and yet when escaping her family troubles, Danica Selma simply hid as a barmaid in the slums. 

It was obvious to him that the girl was completely oblivious as to her father’s plotting against Shinra, and even moreso, she was oblivious to her own inadvertent involvement.

“Hello, Dani.” He spoke with clarity once at a decent distance, causing the girl to spin around just in time to see lips twisting into the shadow of a smile. She didn’t have to ask any questions about who he was, her research had told her as much.

Tseng watched her with intent, able to see the process her mind was cycling through with just a simple glance at her features. He had become somewhat of an expert at reading people even when they showed no sign of emotion, to the point that even the pace of her blinking told her feelings. 

The most obvious he could pull from her expression was fear, something he expected from anyone he visited. Although he wondered if the girl would have been used to the Turks’ presence considering just how close she got to one - then again, Tseng was nothing like Reno.

What Reno lacked in professionalism, he made up for in his talents on the field, but that didn’t stop the redhead from creating a sense of humour around his job. Tseng, on the other hand, treated his work as no laughing matter. Everything he did was within a structured process, a checklist for each checklist, and he would never be caught wasting more time than necessary.

Reno shared many of these qualities, but not to the same extent, and that was why his dynamic with his partner Rude worked so well. Where Reno made sure to antagonise whoever they were working against, Rude proposed a silent threat. In combination to their combat skills when fighting separately and together, they were a dynamic duo, practically unbeatable when together, that Tseng appreciated having under his watch.

The major advantage the head Turk had over his subordinates was the terror he himself instilled. While Reno and Rude certainly elicited fear from people around them, Tseng’s presence took the scale to a new level. Whether they knew who the man was or not, there was a certain air of unease whenever he was around based on the way he held himself alone - nevermind if they actually knew who he was, then they practically ran into the nearest venue to avoid him. 

Even from the minute she locked eyes with him, Dani’s lower lip shuffled between her teeth as she tried to come up with a response to the man, eyes unable to leave his. The man saluted her attempts to give a facade of normality, but all she eventually managed to mumble out was a meak “Hi…”, in which her voice still betrayed her.

Tseng could only respond with a deep chuckle, his voice always strangely smooth for someone of his career. 

The curly haired girl’s mouth hung open as she considered her next move, but ultimately decided to finish her current task before confronting the situation at hand. The door to Diablos wasn’t quite locked yet, her stretching being interrupted by Tseng’s arrival, so she attempted her best to reach upwards to turn the key, shaking hands struggling to connect the metal with the hole in the lock.

A keen eye on the motion of her hand, seeing how she grappled with her trembling hands to unsuccessfully complete the task. He was intimidating, but not a jerk - either that or he knew without interception, she would take some more time - so with confident strides he moved towards her until she could feel the ghost of his breath on her neck.

The feeling caused her to freeze instantly, afraid of what the man may be doing, and only minorly comforted when instead of hurting her, he simply covered her own hand with his and guided it towards the lock. Acknowledging his intentions of helping, Dani allowed him to pry the lock around, although the proximity he had taken behind her wasn’t entirely welcomed. 

Despite the goosebumps of anxiety his presence caused, when he was polite enough to move back and to the side, Dani found herself thanking him automatically.

Tseng gave a nod, observing how her chin almost immediately dropped towards the floor, a classic sign of nerves, and the one that the man disliked the most. A lot of his engagements with those around him came from the basis of respect and silent communication, all of which he thought eye level contact was a major part of. 

Outstretching his hand, he pressed a long finger to the bottom of her chin, tilting her head until she was made to look at him. The second their eyes made contact, however, he pulled back, touch being replaced with a sly upwards turn of the lip.

“May I accompany you home?” He asked, keeping a polite air about him, although he would have walked with her no matter the response.

To his luck, she didn’t attempt to resist, only giving a brief nod of acceptance, and a quick shuffle of her bag over her shoulder.

The Turk motioned an arm for her to move first, both a sign of his gentlemanly nature and the training he had undergone that told him to never let an accompaniment move behind unless there was a complete level of trust. Though he doubted Dani would be capable of any ‘funny-business’, he would certainly never underestimate an acquaintance of Reno, specifically one related to a man known for such violence.

Dani had to force herself to take a deep breath as she began to lead the man through the passageway of the slums. She wondered why he would be so open in visiting her below the plate, why a man of his status so boldly wandered there without a second thought for his safety. She knew he was well trained in combat, but she also knew the numbers of members AVALANCHE had in Sector Seven - surely enough of them could overpower him?

That wasn’t the only question running through her mind. 

They walked in silence - or at least, if he had spoken, Dani wasn’t able to hear his soft voice over the echoing of her heart throbbing in her ears. The silence itself was already frightening, for the barmaid was confronted with everything she had read about the man prior to his arrival.

Reading the document Tifa had provided did nothing for her nerves. Under the head of the Turks’ name, all that was listed was known accolades and involvements - all of which only made the fear she felt over simply his image so much more justified.

And now he was here, standing in front of her.

On top of all that, there was the general wonder of why he was there in the first place. Did he know she was snooping into the Turks? Was he here to threaten her to stay silent about what she had been involved with?

The most prominent of all was one that strangely saddened her; if a Turk had to visit her, why wasn’t it Reno?

Of course, she wasn’t sure if she even wanted to see the redhead, still a bundle of emotions as a result of what had happened between the two. Her newfound friendship with Biggs and Jessie, as well as frequent visits to see them at Seventh Heaven had helped, but there was still the shy confrontation of those feelings she had yet to completely survey. 

If she had seen him, she probably would have wished for any other person to be there, but now as she stood confronted by a completely different Turk, she wondered why he hadn’t come himself. She wondered if Reno had wanted to come, but had been overpowered by his superior, or if he simply had refused the task. She assumed it was the latter; of course he wouldn’t want to see her, that was a selfish want. After all, it had been her to throw him out.

This was, to her, a type of confirmation that she had lost Reno for good.

There was nothing but silence between them for the first part of the journey. Tseng hovered slightly behind the girl, but still close enough to her side that it was obvious to passers by that they were together, making Dani thankful most were too drunk to remember her escort. People gave passing glances, but no one appeared sober enough to form a complete recollection - until they wandered past the Chocobo Ranch, and Dani was hit with the brutal reality that Sam, a man who dealt with elements of Shinra with his involvement in the colosseum, would surely know who the man by her side was.

When Sam recognised her figure wandering through the darkness, his mouth had opened to speak, but shut the moment his eyes adjusted to the Turk with her. The two exchanged no words, but the pleading look Dani sent in his direction begged for him to stay silent over what he had seen. Sam understood immediately, only responding with a tilt of his hat to signify his silence - all of which Tseng saw, gratitude quietly expressed in the form of ignorance. 

In her head, Dani prayed to whatever powers that controlled the Universe would allow for the trip back to her apartment to be fairly undisturbed. She had done enough hiding from people in Sector Seven when it was Reno that accompanied her, and this visitor was certainly more difficult to explain. 

Walking through the gates of the sector only increased her anxiety. It was quieter than she had anticipated, but busier than she had wanted. The Turk by her side certainly didn’t seem phased by all the stares they received, she only wished he would break the eerie silence between them and provide her with an explanation as to why he was even there. Her general lack of knowing what was going on was what made the journey twice as painful.

“Dani!” A familiar voice yelled, and the barmaid swore she could feel all the blood drain from her face upon an instance.

That was Jessie’s voice, tone slightly slurred, a sign that she had spent the evening at Seventh Heaven. With any luck, the girl would be too far gone to recognise what was going on - except she wasn’t alone.

A quick glance towards the voice showed her that Jessie was, infact, held up between Biggs, and another man whose name she had recently learnt was Wedge. On any other night, the sight of the three would have perfectly rounded out her evening, and given her a good chuckle based simply on the way Jessie’s arms were strewn lazily over her friends’ shoulders, as they gripped her waist for dear life.

Although Jessie would have liked to believe she could handle liquor, the proportions of her body meant that she was at a distinct disadvantage to her friends. Dani had learnt that the hard way the first night she had met the girl, when it had instead been Tifa and Dani helping her back, and an equally intoxicated Hanson being dragged behind by Biggs. The two barmaids themselves clearly knew their limits, and considering his own work at Diablos, Dani was surprised by how far past his limit Hanson was willing to push himself.

It certainly seemed like she wasn’t the only person trying to escape her problems that night.

Fear and panic set in for the girl as they began to lug towards her, the wonder why they were even interacting considering who she was with being so prominent that she didn’t even notice Tseng’s disappearance until she glanced around.

He was nowhere to be seen, and she questioned just how long he had made himself sparse for - and how on earth she hadn’t noticed him move.

Had Jessie seen him? Did they know he was there? It didn’t seem like it as they walked to greet her with large smiles.

“Go too hard?” Dani joked suddenly, pushing away the feelings she was experiencing in order to appear as normal as possible. They would surely know something was going on had she been a writhing mess.

Once they were at a close enough distance, Biggs unhooked his friend's arm from his neck and threw her entire weight onto Wedge, the surprise impact receiving a grunt from the latter. The sight itself of Jessie attaching herself to Wedge’s neck to keep herself upright was amusing enough to the curly haired girl that she was almost disappointed when her line of sight was interrupted by Biggs engulfing her in a hug.

After the uneasiness of her journey back from work, his embrace was a familiar comfort. There was a lingering scent of alcohol on his shirt, but that didn’t stop the girl from burying her face into his chest and consuming herself in it to provide the best distraction from everything else going on. 

“She always does.” The dark haired man responded, playfulness lacing his tone. He took a step back to look at her, the girl trying her best to remove any telltale sign of stress that was on her features. “You’re coming to the bar tomorrow night, right?”

Dani raised an eyebrow, in all the fuss of the past half hour, she had completely forgotten her promise to her new friends to visit them on the evening of her only day off. She only had half her wits when she made the promise in the first place, Jessie and Biggs having visited her in the comedown of a hectic shift at the pub she worked in, her brain had been too frazzled to properly formulate a response other than ‘yes’.

Now as she was reminded, Dani was confronted with a thousand other apprehensions. What was Tseng going to do with her? As far as she knew, she might not even be alive tomorrow, and if she was, there was the possibility that she would be too frightened to go anywhere other than to the fridge in her apartment. 

To some extent she felt as though her concern was unjustified. She had no idea why the Turk was even here in the first place, and of what she had seen of him, he had been gentle and unthreatening towards her - he had given no signs of ill-intent, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever his intentions with her were, she would be left rather rattled. 

Yet, even if she had thought she wouldn’t make it to the next day, it wasn’t exactly as thought she could share any of these worries with her friends. There was the general idea that involving yourself with the Turks was frowned upon for any of the slum dwellers, but the added difficulty was that of Biggs’ AVALANCHE involvement. In the same way she couldn’t tell Tifa about her involvement with Reno, there was no way in hell she could tell anyone about Tseng.

“I’m so sorry Biggs - I completely forgot.” She answered honestly, attempting to ignore those insecurities floating through her mind. 

Biggs chuckled, sensing that she would have. “I wouldn’t expect any less from you.”

No one really gave the dark haired man the credit he deserved, he was much smarter than everyone believed. Even now as he looked down at the barmaid, he could sense the uncertainty hidden behind her facade. Something was wrong, and although he couldn’t figure it out, he knew she was hiding something from them - or something had unsettled her at the very least. 

Jessie slurred something from behind that sounded like ‘is she coming?’, allowing for a distraction in which Dani could release a breath she hadn’t even known she had been holding. 

“I’ll come.” A gentle touch to Biggs’ wrist drew his attention back to the girl in front of him, and Dani flashed the best smile she was capable of. “I’ll be there, I promise.”

She couldn’t guarantee that she would be, and making such an empty promise sat wrongly with her, but the grin Biggs elicited at hearing her agree was worth it. Before she had the chance to pull back, he had taken ahold of her hand to give it one last, gentle squeeze. The touch was simple, but effective, and it was a shame he would never quite understand just how much comfort that moment of contact brought to her.

Physical connection was so grounding for Dani, it always had been. It made her aware that she was there, and she was alive - and sometimes, that was the biggest reminder she needed. Living in the slums, life could often run away with you, and Dani as much as the next man was prone to a case of losing herself in her thoughts. There was too much suppressed in her subconscious that whenever she allowed herself to think for one moment, the rest began flooding through. 

Biggs smiled down at her, a groan from his friend behind being the only indication they needed to leave.

“We should probably let you get going,” he commented softly, squeezing her arm once more before stepping back “do you want walking back?”

Dani chuckled,  _ I’ve already got someone  _ “I live five minutes away, I think I’ll be fine.” 

Nodding, Biggs allowed her to continue one with one last send off. Only leaving Wedge to shout a ruffled “See you tomorrow, Dani!” as she began to walk away. 

The one part of the coincidental meeting that comforted the girl had been that her newer friends didn’t know her as well. Had that been Tifa, she would have seen the panic behind the girls eyes, and Dani wouldn’t have been able to escape her questioning. Tifa had a talent for knowing when people weren’t themselves, and Dani was anything but at that moment. 

Walking away was only one part of her struggle. She wondered what would have happened if she had chosen to go with them to their destination, or ducked inside Seventh Heaven whilst Tseng wasn’t there. Would he know? Of course he would, she didn’t know where he had disappeared to, but she was sure he would be watching. That was also another part of the difficulty - that she had no idea where he had disappeared to, so all she could do was keep walking. In her mind, she hoped he would have just vanished into thin air, the threat of his presence enough, but she knew she couldn’t be so lucky. 

All she could do was keep walking; keep walking until the clearing and her friends were out of sight, and the small framework of her apartment came into view. 

There was no sign of interruption when she arrived home, an experience which confused her more so. Even when she looked around behind her, scanning the faces of every person still awake in the slums, she couldn’t match any to the Turk. It was as though he’d vanished. 

What would that mean she had to do now? Surely his visit hadn’t been that short. Would she have to wait outside for him, walk to find him, should she just wait inside her apartment?

Settling on the latter with a sigh, she supposed the best possible place to wait would be the final location intended by the Turk. If she tried to wander the streets, the chances of them missing each other would be likely, and it would only tire the girl out more. She was both physically and mentally exhausted from the length of the shift she had completed and the sudden arrival of Tseng, and she honestly wanted nothing more than to curl up in bed without changing. 

“Dani Selma, right?” 

The voice made her jump as she stepped into her apartment, flicking the light on to see Tseng sat on her bed, holding a family photograph from her nightstand in his hands. He didn’t look up at her, but from the small yelp she let out, he could sense the fear his appearance had provoked. 

Had he been any other man, Dani would have questioned how on earth he had appeared so simply in her room - but his disappearance earlier that night had already proven she hadn’t given him enough credit. He was head of the Turks, for God's sake, that meant something. If he couldn’t act with stealth, then he wouldn’t deserve the position he had, and he had proved all of that tonight. 

If this was how good he was at the tracking portion of his work, she dreaded to think about the rest of it. 

The sound that left her throat resembled something of an acknowledgement, but the shock still hadn’t subsided. The girl still remained wedged in front of her door, holding on to the handle as though that would help her escape in this situation. 

Tseng placed the photograph down, eyes meeting Dani’s. “Any relation to Elliot Selma?” 

He knew the answer, obviously, but he wanted to see her reaction. That alone would confirm or deny that she knew anything about her involvement in everything. Dani simply raised an eyebrow, her own self clearly questioning why he even had to ask. 

“My father..” She shivered as she spoke, only subtly, but Tseng still caught it. 

Truthfully, Dani hadn’t heard his name since being a teenager. Before her death, her mother had sworn her children from ever speaking their fathers name, called him a traitor and a vile man. Whatever had driven her father to walk out on them, her mother held more resentment than Dani ever believed possible, a shock considering how horrible he was as both a husband and a father. Anyone would have been lucky to be rid of him, but Dani’s mother still pined after him, until she realised he was never coming back. That was when everything went downhill. 

“Are you familiar with any of his work?”

Dani suddenly hated this conversation even more, and she hadn’t believed that possible. 

She would much rather Tseng push a dagger through her heart than have to discuss her father. Remembering how things turned out with him only led her down a rabbit hole oh considering just how messed up that part of her life had been. She was led to believe that what she went through when younger was normal - yet it was anything but. No child should ever have to put up with that. The regret, the tears, the neglect. A ten year old shouldn’t be left to pick up the pieces. 

Of course she wasn’t ‘familiar’ with whatever the man was doing. She hadn’t spoken to him since he had walked out, and as far as she knew there was no possible way of knowing where he currently was. Her younger sister by six years had mentioned tracking him down after their mother died, but Dani was way too reluctant to contact the man again after everything he put them through. Whether or not they were in contact now, she had no idea, it had been over half a decade since she had even seen any members of her family.

“I haven’t spoken to him since I was ten years old.” She answered honestly. There was no reason to lie, not about  _ him.  _

Tseng seemed bewildered by her answer, eyes squinted in the sort of glare that told he was scanning every inch of her body for a sign of a lie. Instead he was only met with symbols that she was telling the wholehearted truth. 

“I thought considering you…” The Turk trailed off, and Dani could faintly see a flash of recognition behind his eyes. Something had just clicked, she didn’t know what it was, but it frightened her. His unfinished sentence only left her with more questions about his arrival than before. 

Whatever realisation had hit the head of the Turks, he brushed it off as easily as dust on his suit jacket, returning to his collected demeanour that was the source of so much fear.

“Then I assume you have no idea about his connection with AVALANCHE?”

Now it was Dani’s turn to raise an eyebrow. She had seen the meetings at Seventh Heaven plenty a time. Sure, she detested her father with all of her might, but she could still remember vividly what he looked like, mainly because he was everything that instilled hatred within her. He was the opposite to her and her mother, paper white skin, burning blue eyes that pierced your soul when you looked at him. Everything about him screamed ‘recognisable’. Worse still, did Tifa and company know her father?

“AVALANCHE?” This time her speech was more a self-directed comment. “That doesn’t make sense. Tifa-”

“It is not that cell of the group he is involved with.” Tseng commented simply, a surprise to Dani, who knew very little about the movement other than what she overheard from her friend.

She wasn’t oblivious to their cause, but chose to keep her nose out of it. Combat and politics wasn’t her thing, there was a reason she pulled drinks for a living. Growing up as a carer for her siblings, she had learnt mostly about childcare and housework, she had little time for acts of bravery, but still supported what her friends were doing.

“He heads a private cell residing in Costa del Sol.” There was meaning to his words, she could tell. He watched her as he spoke, eager to see if he pulled a reaction from mentioning the familiar place name, only satisfied enough to continue when he saw her features twist in bewilderment. “Unfortunately, their sector are providing a lot of empty threats to the Shinra company at the current moment, but we are unable to pin down a location. They haven’t shown to be dangerous, but we believe they have the power to be.”

“So you wanted to pry me for information?” Suddenly the listening device made sense to Dani, or so she thought. 

It hurt her, to some extent. That measly listening device had broken down a relationship of sorts that was beginning to form on the basis that Dani felt she couldn’t trust Reno. Now, it turned out he placed it there to possibly protect her? Nevertheless, that trust had still shattered the moment he had gone behind her back.

Why hadn’t Reno just told her why? 

Tseng was hiding something, Dani was sure of this as he pursed his lips together. There was something he wasn’t telling her. “It was something along those lines.”   


Every emotion she could possibly have felt at that moment began to rise until it felt as though she was being choked by her own feelings. There were no longer butterflies in her stomach, but whole reels of knots and vines that suffocated her from the inside out. The mention of her father, revelation of his involvement with a group she thought she knew well, and then topped off by every suppressed emotion from the last few weeks about Reno, it all began to boil over.

The tears that filled her eyes weren’t even those of sadness, they were filled with anger. Anger at how the world was beginning to turn anti-clockwise away from her, dragging her along with it whilst she sat, prepared only for that of a clockwise rotation. All her plans, all her feelings had been turned on their head and she no longer had a sense of what she really felt, and what was all fabricated by the powers that be.

She wanted to scream, wanted to cry out to Shiva, Bahamut and Odin and beg them to leave her be. Every time she stepped through a door that led her to happiness, it locked behind her and threw in swarms of bite bugs. There was no escaping the eventual stings, and all she could do was sit helpless as the world clawed chunks out of her.

Overwhelmed, her throat began to croak out an attempt at a sentence. “Well, I have nothing that will be of any use to you. Unless you want stories of childhood trauma.” 

Watching her with a keen eye, Tseng stood to attention and moved away from the bed on instinct, sensing her rising frustration. There were many qualities he had in a questioning situation, but he was no man to cause further distress unless it was welcomed by the person. He had seen too many men fail over their lack of empathy. 

Dani moved to replace him on the bed, only just making it to the frame in time before her legs buckled from beneath her, and she fell plush into the mattress. She looked up at Tseng with tired eyes, moreso from the memories as opposed to her physicality now. “Tell me, what does my father want with Shinra?”

“There is a man in our custody,” Tseng paused, watching her expression for confirmation that she was stable enough for him to continue “A fugitive caught a long time ago. He’s due to be sentenced, and we believe the stem of AVALANCHE to want to break him from our jails.”

“If he’s yet to be sentenced, why don’t they just wait for the verdict?”

Her naivety was borderline sweet, pulling a chuckle from the man. “I would have thought you knew by now what my department did to those who cross us.”

That, a subtle threat, she understood. They wanted to break him out of capture because he would be killed for whatever crimes he had committed. Tseng was right, Dani knew from the times that Reno had arrived to see her, bruised and cut up, their job wasn’t one of glamour and compassion.

“Oh.” Was all she managed to answer.

She didn’t feel sorry for the man who would surely be sentenced to death on the simple cause that she didn’t know him, nor have any idea about what he had actually done. Being too quick to sympathise at times was often a downfall, for it could turn out the man was a mass murderer, or something along those lines.

“Is that all?” She spoke again after a moment of silence.

Tseng hummed, still studying her with a stare that felt so grating. “If you are sure there is nothing else you can inform me?”

He was prying for something else. Dani was at times naive, but she wasn’t completely oblivious to when things were being hidden from her, not all the time. There were multiple clues that told he was withdrawing information, but most obvious was that of the tone he took with her. He was treating her like a child being scolded for lying, but Dani couldn’t figure out for the life of her what the lie she was telling was. 

For her part, she had told him the whole truth. It was him that was denying giving her the full story.

Why would he have journeyed this far into the slums just to mention that one thing?

The Turk had the confirmation he needed, although, simply by watching her once again, the talent having become eerily obvious to Dani, and he made his way to the door. She almost wanted to ask if she should expect more visits, but knew better than to interrupt their schedule. She had told him all she could, and only hoped that would be enough.

She also hoped all the emotions she had been confronted with would dissipate as quickly as they had appeared.

As he crossed the threshold, Tseng turned back around to face her, cold gaze latched onto her face. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Miss Selma.” Then, for just one moment, his features twisted into something she couldn’t quite unpick. “And on a more personal level; stay away from Mr. Sinclair.” He lowered his tone “Nothing good can come from that involvement, none of which is your fault.”

Dani was shocked by his comment. It wasn’t that she hadn’t been expecting it, for that's what she had initially believed him to be there for. What shocked her the most about it was that he seemed to speak it outside of his professional conscience, with a genuine element of concern.

There was an upturn in the corner of his lips as he caught her eye once again. “But let’s keep that little warning between us.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> six. thousand. words. y'all. it doesn't sound much but it's way more than i usually write. i should have split it up really, but oh well. 
> 
> i’m so excited writing this now as it means i’m finally getting somewhere with the drama - and shits about to go down:’) it's a little messy in points but i'm starting to drop a little bit more information in about my plot. reno will be back soon i promise!
> 
> thank you for all your lovely comments and support! next update will probably be next friday as i don’t think i’ll have an extra update for monday ready - see you then!


	9. Irresponsibility

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of Tseng's visit rings true for Dani and Reno.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter warning: includes a little bit of mention of smut in here towards the end (although that seems surprising considering the beginning of the chapter lol)! nothing too descriptive but there nonetheless.

There was something she wasn’t being told. Something Tseng wasn’t telling her.

Dani had seen it in his eyes. She perhaps wasn’t quite as good at reading people as the Turk was, but she knew basic ideas about how a person acted when withholding information. Although Tseng had been trained to hide it in any explicit action, his eyes had given it away.

She was rattled, that was a given. Her feet couldn’t remain still whilst she paced the floor. Standing in one place wasn’t a choice, for standing in one place would mean no relief from the thoughts filling her head. At least if she was moving, a part of her psyche relaxed, and the tension that was building in her muscles was able to dissipate into the room. 

She needed sleep. It was coming on five in the morning, and she needed rest to prepare for the day ahead. She had made a promise to Biggs that she would visit him, Tifa and the others at the bar, and Tseng had left her alive, so she still had to uphold that promise. Surely she couldn’t hide the emotions from Tifa’s beady eye? No, the girl knew her too well, she would know the moment she stepped through the door.

What if they had found out? She had a lucky escape when her friends saw her on the journey home, but plenty of people had seen her with the Head of the Turks. What if one of them relayed information to Tifa? Hell, Johnny was unable to keep his mouth shut around the woman - if he had seen her and Tseng, Tifa would know by the time she even opened her eyes to the world.

She couldn’t go, she couldn’t possibly pretend that she was okay when everything running through her mind made her want to fall into an everlasting slumber. 

Too many years of learning to suppress her emotions had left her, in whole, without coping mechanisms whenever the banks of that dam were burst. Whether it be around her family, or those feelings she had pushed to the back of her brain about her recent fallout with Reno, her worst trait was never confronting the way she felt. 

Maybe if she had been used to expressing those feelings, perhaps in the form of investing in a therapist, she wouldn’t have felt the way she did at that moment in time. 

Now, every thought she had pushed away seemed to flood over, most notably worries about betrayal. Her father had been a member of AVALANCHE. Sure, Tseng had clarified that Tifa and company knew nothing about her father’s involvement, yet she couldn’t help but worry there was more to this story than was being let on.

It wasn’t like a person could simply ‘not know’ they were in the acquaintance of Elliot Selma - he made sure every person knew his face, his name, and the echo of his voice. He was cold, loud, and opinionated - everything she supposed made him a good leader of an organisation like the one he was involved with. The man was never afraid to stand up to beliefs that went against his own, and if you pissed him off he would make sure as hell you never did again.

That was his teaching method as both a person and a family member. 

It was no secret Elliot always despised his wife’s heritage - adding further to the confusion over hearing he now operated in the same area she had been from - and he made it clear to her most nights. She was beneath him because she didn’t come from the same area of Gaia.

Sometimes Dani wondered if he had gotten out of Corel before its destruction. They had, long before, and it was only on the news that they discovered the devastation.

Perhaps that was what drove her father’s anti-Shinra agenda..?

She remembered the argument, so, so vividly. It had happened a week before her father walked out for good. In fact, she remembered scarily every detail of that,although she had chosen to ignore most of it. Whatever her father had come home upset about, he made it clear to her mother, and through the tears Dani was only able to pick up the occasional name call of ‘brat’, amongst other…  _ slurs.  _

Then what followed in the week was silence. Silence at the dinner table, silence in the evenings, silence before the school run. It was as though there was a ticking time bomb attached between the two adults that could go off the second one of them stretched too far away. All Dani had been able to do was sit on the top step of their staircase, four year old sister tucked under her arm in silent sobs, baby brother sleeping in bed.

She was ten years old.

And then Elliot did. He set off the device when he walked away, and Dani had been left to pick up the remnants ever since.

After everything that had happened, both then and in her recent life, the surprise announcement of her father being in Costa del Sol had been the last thing she needed. Why on earth was he there? She had walked away from her family, so she supposed she had no right to be concerned about them, but she still didn’t want them anywhere near the man who had very nearly ruined her life. In a way he had.

In addition, she hated so deeply that his political views were now clearly the reason behind the collapse of one thing that brought her happiness in her boring little life.

Elliot had destroyed her childhood. He had shattered her happiness and pulled her family apart, her mother having slumped into a darkness that eventually killed her, and she had left to travel to Midgar to escape all that. Then she had found something that made her have some purpose, even if it was just sex, and he had somehow still found his way to slime into that and break it apart.

She could no longer hold back the tears that began to fall. She had fallen out with Reno because of the listening devices, all of which were there simply to catch her father in the act. Even when he wasn’t in her life, he was inadvertently ruining it.

There was a part of her that wanted to apologise and grovel to the Turk she had once been involved with, but the technicality still stood that he had betrayed her trust. Coming back from that wasn’t really an option.

Every little thing worried her to the core. She still couldn't understand why Tseng wasn't telling her the full story. Maybe he didn't realise she could tell he was't being entirely honest, but she still wondered why a Turk wouldn't disclose all the information they were required to. This terrified her, in honesty. If he was concerned about an element of the situation, then how was she meant to cope? She was a bartender, not a martial law expert.

The world was beginning to crash around her the same way it did when she was a mere ten year old. The biggest difference this time was that she didn’t have the childish naivety she needed to stitch the pieces back together.

  
  
━

Reno hadn’t expected to receive a call so early in the morning.

All night, something had been poking at his brain, keeping him from sleeping until all he could do was stare at the ceiling. He had tried to sleep, even tried a ‘night time yoga’ routine he found on the internet (although this proved more difficult than helpful as his lack of flexibility and long limbs certainly prevented him being successful in this), until he decided it was time to climb out of bed and make himself busy.

Sleep wasn’t something he got a lot of, that was a given. Long work hours and other, more  _ personal,  _ matters tended to get in the way of a regular schedule. Even when he found himself with nothing to do other than go to bed, he always ended up lying awake at night thinking about what was going on in his life.

In his occupation, he had to see a lot of things that weren’t necessarily easy on the conscience, and he had to do most himself. 

He wasn’t sympathetic to those he was sent to deal with, not completely, for most missions came with their own reasons. However there was the occasional one that weighed on his mind, disturbing his nightly routine in the way that only guilt could.

Those were the nights he would travel down to the slums, and wander through Sector Six until he happened to ‘stumble’ across the Honeybee Inn. Visits to the nightclub were much better in the evenings that he was aiming to forget about something, for he could focus on bliss instead of the memories of the day.

That was how he met Dani, actually. 

One night, earlier than usual after a task Reno just  _ knew  _ would keep him awake, he took the trip down below the plate. Intentions simply to walk to the Inn, complete his business, and be on his way, he couldn’t help but notice a bar that had otherwise been invisible to him. While he usually passed in the later hours of the morning when the establishment had shut its doors, his early arrival meant that it was still pounding with life.

He wouldn’t have gone inside had he not seen her behind the bar. The barmaid wasn’t his usual type, dark voluminous curls that she hid with a hair tie and a face absent of much makeup, but there was something intriguing about every interaction she made with those around her. He was desperate to know for himself what the stranger was like.

A happy decision really, for had he not been so entranced by her even from a distance, he would never have known what it was like to be on top of her.

That night had caused a beautiful string of meetings that he had, as of late, tried to forget. It wasn’t good for his health to be so consumed in matters of personal affairs, which was most of the reason he tried to stray away from relationships and emotions, but Danica Selma had not made that easy. 

He was so intrigued by the young woman, in both a physical and emotional sense. He knew her well, but there was still so much about her he wanted to discover.

Every little thing about her fascinated him, from the way her attention was always fixated on specific parts of his body, to the little short breaths she drew whenever she was about to reach her climax below him. And that was just on the scale of what he could see. There was so much more depth to the girl living in the slums, all a result from her childhood, that he strangely craved access to. 

Conversation about personal life had originally been kept to a minimum. Even when the two became more friendly than during their original encounters, he still felt there was so little he actually knew about her.

Nevertheless, tonight was not the same type of sleeplessness he was used to.This wasn’t the sort of one restless feeling he could kick out simply through distraction, it was one that would stop him from seeking any comfort until his body decided it was ready. There was no way he could even enjoy the company of a Honeybee girl anyway when all his thoughts were consumed by the bartender from the slums.

He desperately needed to stop thinking about her. 

In the way that Dani so well suppressed her emotions, Reno replaced those he was actually feeling with something more familiar. What he would have recognised as sadness had he sat and thought about it was replaced with an unusual rage. Rage directed towards the girl herself - none of which was going to be helped by thinking about her.

Reality told him he had no right to be angry, for it was he who had broken her trust, and yet he was. He was so angry that it almost burned his skin to a crisp. 

He had wanted to explain, he really had. Logic told him that he wouldn’t have been able to considering his work ties, but his own ego refused to let him see this, instead blindsiding him with the possibility that she perhaps didn’t allow him time.

Reno knew this was bullshit, but chose to keep it as part of his beliefs purely to justify that anger that bubbled in the pit of his stomach.

Infact, he did have reason to be angry. He was angry because the goddamned girl wouldn’t leave his thoughts. Woman.  _ Woman.  _ Dani wasn’t just a ‘girl’, not really.

She occupied every peaceful moment in his brain and this made him furious. He was tired of the constant imagery of his face, tired of remembering the way she felt below him, and certainly tired of how that made him feel. Because truthfully, he had decided he wanted to be angry at her because it usually helped the way he felt. Usually, he could brush those thoughts off on the justification that he was too mad to deal with them.

Now, at five in the morning, was when all that brushing away came back to haunt his dreams - or lack thereof.

Another thing about Reno was that he had a habit of wanting what he couldn’t have, and that extended to Dani in this case. Not only because he couldn’t have her, but because he had convinced himself for such a long time now that he didn’t want her, that his body now craved to break his own rules.

He supposed he was really crazy when it came to how he dealt with his problems.

Every time he shut his eyes he saw her face, a sight that made him wish that it would be imagery of those he had to deal with during missions instead. Yet every time he shut them for even a moment, there was no such luck.

Despite all his wishing and attempts to convince himself he wanted nothing to do with her, his brain still dragged him along on a torturous ride as it tried to recall every dip in her body. Each curve and dimple seemed to be there for a reason, and he had loved so dearly spending time staring at them. They would forever be permanently engraved in his mind.

One thought led to another, even rolling on his side didn’t help, it was clear these images wouldn’t give him peace tonight.

So, in the most ‘Reno’ way he knew, he decided to succumb to them.

His mind began to wander, and this time he let it, lying back on his back as he began to imagine her right at that moment. Had she met anyone? Had she too been trying to distract herself from emotions with other people?

Or perhaps she was still hung up on him, he sort of liked that idea. Imagining her thinking about him, unable to move on because nothing could quite compare to what they had. 

That was, to both parties, true. Reno certainly prided himself on his skills in the bedroom, but never expected to find a girl who gave him what he was so used to giving others. Dani knew what she was doing, he would put it like that. There was no denying that the girls at the Inn Reno had been so used to sleeping with weren’t any competition.

Now that was what he missed the most. Both the way she took care of him, and watching her beneath him when he returned the favour. 

Reno loved watching her face whenever they were having sex, a strange thing to admit, but a guilty pleasure of his. He knew what she liked, and what she was more opposed to, and he always used this to his advantage. He enjoyed it most when he had her pinned to the bedspread, one leg hooked over his shoulder, hands trapped above her head. There he had the perfect view of every inch of her body, from the tenderness of her skin on his, to the access to watch her face twist in pleasure. 

Gods, he adored the little sounds that would leave her lips every time his adjustment meant that he would hit that sensitive spot within her. He never liked to overdo it to begin with, but occasionally he would shuffle his position to reach it under the facade that he was simply moving around, when he really did it just to hear the gasp of surprise she let out. She’d buck her hips against him in the shock, and that feeling alone encouraged him to do it again and again. 

His favourite thing about her was the allowance for him to take charge. She was more than happy to let Reno take control, do whatever he wanted to her, and he loved this. But more so than that, it made the unexpected occasion where she would take the lead even more enjoyable to him.

Dani was happy to submit the majority of the time, but there was the occasional meeting in which she wanted to put in more of the work. These usually came after a shift that had left her frustrated, when she would make it clear to the redhead that she was in control tonight. He enjoyed those nights, although he would never fully admit it, but he loved being able to look up at her as she did whatever she wanted, have that access to her body and all her tender spots whilst she rode him. 

Plain and simple, he enjoyed the way she felt around him. 

These thoughts alone would be the death of him, the first few creating a problem in themselves. He had thought too much about her now for anyone else to be able to sort out his growing erection, so those thoughts alone would have to suffice.

He hadn’t realised just how much his thoughts had drifted until his hand came in contact with his own member, light touch sending a jolt of electricity through his body from the minute he began. It was his mind that led the motion, hand moving in time to memories of his rhythm from their last meeting, thoughts fixated on the image of her below him. 

He conjured up the picture of her lying there, lips slightly parted, usually curly hair stuck to her forehead as she was overcome with pleasure. Most of all he drew on memories of how she felt around him, still so tight around his cock despite all of their meetings together. This was the main thought that drove the motion of his wrist as he jerked himself off, small grunts slipping through his own lips whenever his fingers flicked the sensitivity of his head. 

Memories of time well spent circulated through his mind non stop as he brought himself closer and closer to climax. He considered the time he had the barmaid against her small dining table, the time he had taken her during one of her shifts when the two had slipped so secretly out of the back, another when she had purposefully spilt a drink down his front in the bar just so that she could rub him through his trousers. He thought about the time he had been so annoyed with his boss that he had tied her hands to the headboard of the bed, and she had been so happy to be helpless there beneath him that she even his painstaking edging of her orgasm that lasted over an hour had been well received.

Most of all he thought about just how desperate he was for it to be her hand working his cock at that moment. 

He was so consumed in the pleasure of his own stimulation that at first he had ignored the ringing of his phone. It was only ever Tseng that rang him, but he usually hung up when Reno didn’t answer immediately on the thought that his subordinate may be busy, and he didn’t want to waste any more time.

Only when the mobile continued to ring did he begrudgingly pull his hand away from his member to check the caller ID. If Tseng hadn’t hung up yet it would be urgent - and if it was anyone else, he would simply ignore it and return to finishing himself off. 

So when the familiar name flashed up, he almost didn’t know what to do for a moment as he hadn’t considered that to be an option.

It was five in the morning, and he supposed that was what worried him into answering. 

“Dani?” he spoke hurriedly, surprising himself with the level of worry in his voice.

Just moments ago he had gone from being furious at her, to fantasising about her, and now here she was ringing him. What an absolute mindfuck of events. 

There was no sound from the other side of the line, or at least, the sound that there was was minimal. It was as though upon hearing his voice, she had stopped breathing all together, and if the silence had continued any longer he was sure he would have begun to panic. 

Panic wouldn’t have been the exact word he chose to describe his feelings, but when he heard a slight muffled sob from the other end of the line, the emotion that rushed through his body was something along those lines.

“Dani?” The Turk repeated again, so completely confused by how this evening had been playing. He was lying awake at five a.m., bulge still showing through his joggers, on the phone to the girl he had just been thinking about moments ago. “Are you a’ight?”

Then the line shut off. It wasn’t the sound of a line being cut, but the sound that told she had hung up, another confusion piling on top of everything he was already experiencing. That was Dani -  _ his  _ Dani, after not contacting him for months. She had called him, and furthermore, she had been crying.

Was she alright? Was it over him? He had so many more questions than he had begun the night with, and a strange fear directed towards both her and himself.

Although he had spent most of the morning hours thinking about her, the contact was something that threatened to cause a swirl of emotions hurling towards him - things he didn’t want to deal with. He had never expected to hear from her again, and now here she was, ringing him in a moment of darkness. 

This was turning out to be the most contradicting night of his entire life. And now, on top of everything from before, he had a newfound worry for whatever the girl was going through. No matter how much of the evening he had spent trying to convince himself he didn’t care for her, such a short call had made it painfully obvious he still did, and now he had to deal with that as well.

So much for masturbating.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact: i wrote this today (hence why the update is so late (and also rather messy) aha - procrastination at its finest). 4,00 words, though, which is good to say i wrote it quickly.
> 
> anyways, it's safe to say dani and reno have... very different coping mechanisms.
> 
> thank you for all your support once again! i say it a lot but it really does mean so much to me. next chapter is the first so far without dani actually being in it..!!


End file.
